Having my first MRI this week.
 

You'd think I'd had at least one after 36 years. I have asked about it in the past, but most doctors explained, and correctly so, that therre's very little chance of it showing anything at all, so this is really nothing more than a formality.

Any tips for a first-timer, especially with respect to our common brain thingie?

MRIs are extremely loud. They provide you with earplugs, but for me that wasn't nearly enough; I was dizzy for hours after the procedure. I would arrange to have someone drive you home afterward and plan on taking it easy for at least the rest of the day, and maybe for a few days.

Kenjhee,

I have had quite a few MRI's. Besides the noise, I struggle with claustrophobia. The easiest way to deal with the small tunnel is to never touch it and even better to never see it.

Once they have you set up with the detector coil over your head, close your eyes and pull your arms in and cross them comfortably. This will prevent your elbows from feeling the sides of the tunnel.

Now, relax and imagine being in an open area such as a field of flowers or any pleasant image.

I have lived with claustrophobia for decades and this always works for me.

The ear plugs they often offer are not the best because they are easy to insert. The yellow cylindrical foam plugs work the best for me. Twist them tight and insert them deep so you can just barely grab them.

Relax and let the noise fade into the background of your imagination if you can.

Thanks, all! I don't really have claustrophobia, and in fact if there's something opposite, I probably have that. I actually like crawling into tight areas; I sometimes think I should have taken up spelunking.

In fact, when I sleep I often have this bad habit of wedging my body in the little space between my bed and the wall. It sort of makes me feel "safe". Yep, wierd.

I didn't know they were loud, but I think I'm OK there, too. I'm used to shooting (I know you are, too, Mark). I take it you can't use your own shooting ear muffs?

My MRI's have usually been about 20 minutes.

I am a cocoon sleeper. I like my covers tight around me but getting stuck in a rigid tight spot is completely different. I would not be good at spelunking.

I suffered trauma from being confined in handcuffs behind my back for an hour. I actually had to buy some handcuffs to practice wearing to get over the anxiety from watching someone get cuffed on TV.

They put pads on both sides of your ears to prevent your head from moving around, so headphones won't work. Just bring the best ear plugs you can find, like Mark said. Good luck!

I have plenty of the foam insertable kind also, but do I have to bring my own? You'd think they would provide.

Take you own ear plugs. I have found that the foam plugs usually offered are usually the hollow bell shaped ear plugs because they are easy to insert. They do not work as well as the yellow cylindrical ear plugs.

I had my first one.. oh.. I think it was December.. but i'm not sure.. it's one of the few things I can remember!
It's loud, the ear plugs aren't effective against the noise. At all. Although, you can't hear the people talking to you.. it'd have been great if I could have kept them for every day life.
In my MRI, the tech people could talk to you, it was quite reassuring.. But they didn't warn me that the whole machine would start shaking violently.. It was how I imagined it would be to be inside a rocket before launching..

Just be prepared, take some painkillers and don't be stupid like I was and assume you can go back to work or see a lot of people. I made everything so much worse because I'm stubborn!
Good Luck!

I have done several MRIs and first time I freaked and felt extremely claustrophobic. Later on I got used and as everyone mentioned have yellow earfoam plugs, don't open your eyes etc., and you will be fine. If the MRI is open bore (not open MRI which is useless for brain) you don't feel that claustrophobic.

If you really want to take this MRI thing one step further you can look for clinical trials (http://clinicaltrials.gov) for 7T (most of the facilities has only 1.5T or 3T). I have a friend who is a post doc at University of Philadelphia and he has been involved in this MRI magnets for about a decade.

He swears the images are amazing what it shows. He told he has been on that machine several time and can stay there for 3 hours easily. This machine is longer tunnel than regular machine. Wow! Seriously :)

He wants to look at my brain and I have to travel to Philly and all that. Even NIH at Bethesda doing it and I might do that at at some point. Just my 2 cents.

good luck with the MRI! I am glad that you like confined spaces, because I did not enjoy the feeling of being trapped in the MRI. (I didn't think I was claustrophobic, but I definitely felt so during the procedure!)

The hospital I went to provided me with a towel to put over my eyes and headphones for music, although paired with the loud noises, I found the music to be overstimulating. They even gave me a little oxygen tube to stick near my face. I guess feeling the air helped me feel less trapped.

I agree that the shaking was weird and unexpected.

I hope you have a good experience. Let us know how it goes.

:o

Be prepared for LOTS of extreme clunking, grinding and vibrating sounds - nobody had ever mentioned what kinds of sounds the MRI makes.:eek:

reminded me of jackhammers and noisy construction equipment.
at least the one I experienced in 2004 was that loud.

I have no idea why they need to be so noisy though...:confused:

People have told me that MRIs sound a lot like the Smoke Monster from the tv series Lost. Sounds like a good match for me!

1. Use good earplugs.

2. Focus on mindful breathing (not on anxiety-inducing thoughts). Just pay attention to your breathing and know that the MRI doesn't last all that long. I think I counted breaths, starting over when I got up to 20. Every time I counted 20, I thought: OK, I'm that much closer to being done.

3. If you have a friendly technician, maybe ask him or her to talk you through it. Mine told me how long the MRI would take (about 20-25 mins) and during the scan would say things over the speaker like, "The next scan will last about two minutes," etc. He did this until the MRI was over.

It isn't pleasant, but you can cope with it. Just find something neutral to focus on and try not to stoke your own anxieties.

OK, got through it. It was no difficulty whatsoever. The noise didn't bother me, I'm not claustrophobic like I said (heartfelt prayers if you are). It was just a loud buzz, like if you were lying next to a buzzer alarm. It wasn't really that loud, especially with ear plugs in.

As far as lying perfectly still for 30 minutes, my years in Zen meditation has served me well. Now to wait for results...

...and the results are in. I'm not sure, but I think it's pretty much what I anticipated in there being very little artifactual evidence for a "mild" TBI. I snipped out what I thought were the salient results...


MR Brain with and without Contrast dated 23 May 2012

CLINICAL HISTORY: 53-year-old male with a 30 year history of
headaches.

FINDINGS: There are a few scattered small foci of nonspecific
nonenhancing T2/flair signal abnormality in the white matter without
co-localized regions of restricted diffusion which could reflect
evidence of chronic small vessel ischemic disease in a patient of
this age. There is suggestion of a focal area of ill-defined
enhancement in the right forceps major on present image 17 series 10)
which is not clearly visualized on the sagittal postcontrast images,
and is without correlate on additional imaging sequences, likely
related to pulsation artifact. Alternatively, this could represent a
small capillary telangiectasia. No acute intracranial hemorrhage or
acute infarction is seen. No focal brain parenchymal lesion is
present. No mass effect or midline shift. Ventricular size is within
normal limits. No abnormal extra-axial fluid collections. No
evidence of abnormal brain parenchymal or extra-axial enhancement.

...