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.