My Tesla 3/MRI Experience

Does it have to be with a 3T MRI? Are all 3T machines long bore, or are there also short bores? Our MRI is 1.5T short bore with flare openings.

I had a similar experience except I took enough Ativan to choke a horse, so nothing bothered me. Good thing my wife went with me because I was so stoned I couldn't drive home if I wanted to.

Purgatory said...
Good description of typical mri experience. I have had a dozen or so. Never had tobbe sedated. I just close my eyes and zone out, gotten good at that over the years. The last one, recently, was my brain mri. As described above, plus a tight fitting face mask, then having entire head bolted down, and not being able to move for nearly an hour.

Good luck to you ahead.

David

I'd have to have therapy for my control issues before I could even consider having my head bolted down. Just thinking about it makes me want to run outside.

My 3T MRI at Vanderbilt had a fairly short bore. My head was just outside the far end. What made it difficult was having to keep my arms over my head while on my back for the whole time. My shoulders were killing me.

I also had no idea what time it was. They told me going in it would be something like 30 minutes. But, they did a bunch of series and I was actually in for about an hour and 20 minutes. I thought my mind had done some strange time dilation effect, since that seemed like the longest 30 minutes of my life! When I came out, my wife said, "Where have you been?!". She told me how long it had actually been.

The technicians never said anything during the entire ordeal, except once when I accidentally bumped the panic switch I had to hold, for the whole time.

I tried to mentally zone out, and did pretty well. I don't know where my mind went... if anyone finds it would you send it back my way???

Richh,

I had the 3T MRI the day before my RALP. I was fortunate in not having the endorectal coil. Having said that, my experience was EXACTLY the same as yours, without hitting the panic button. I did not like it at all. I would highly recommend sedation. My mouth was sooooo dry that I was almost certain I would go into panic mode. My chest feels heavy just thinking about it. I'm glad others managed it so well. But in the end, it helped my surgeon get on target and he did a fantastic job.

This is a longer post about my MRI experience.

Let me start by saying I can be a big baby sometimes, and Wednesday proved to be one of those days. I've never had an IV before and I handled that OK. The probe is really big and except for a couple of ouches and ohs, I handled that OK. That should have been the worst of it. At least that's what I had prepared myself for.

Apparently as I have gotten older, the slight claustrophobia I have, is now moderate claustrophobia. The nurse led me to think my head would be partially outside the mri, but when they pushed me in, I went all the way in and started to panic. Because I have a slightly pinched nerve in my shoulder, I had to keep my arms folded across my chest instead of pushed back behind my head, so I was squeezed by the tube on both sides. I felt trapped (control freak) and hit the panic button. They brought me back out. I took a few deep breaths and tried to relax and told them I was ready to go again.

about halfway in I hit the panic button again. This time I was getting nasty looks. I'm surprised they didn't tell me to put my big boy pants on. But this time the problem was different. They had put ear plugs in my ears and I had asked for headphones so I could listen to music while in the tube. It was supposed to be on the oldies station and it was on an urban radio station. Now being trapped in the tube and forced to listen to urban radio for an hour definitely caused me to panic. The radio station was changed and I went back in.

If you've never been in an MRI, they are LOUD, even with ear plugs in. Most of the time I couldn't even hear the music. And the noises the MRI makes would be perfect in a Halloween haunted house - groans, bangs, whirs, clunks, and screeches. At times, everything starts vibrating - kind of like a massage bed but with sound effects.

So I'm in the tube and trying to stay calm. I had purposely not drank much water so I wouldn't have to go for at least an hour. Lately, that can be a challenge. Evidently I hadn't drank enough and my mouth and throat were so dry I could barely swallow. My hotel room was hot, the hospital was hot, and there is a gale force wind blowing through the MRI. I needed water. Next time I will be adequately hydrated. I spent most of the first 20 minutes or so just trying to get enough saliva to wet my mouth and lips, swallowing and breathing became challenging. I almost instinctively hit the panic button a few times but kept telling myself the result would be worse than sticking it out. No way did I want to start the procedure all over again.

If I looked back over my head, I could see a little bit of the room ceiling. This was just enough to keep me from panicking. And then suddenly the gurney starts moving deeper into the tube. "Oh XXXX" came out without thinking. The technician asks if I'm OK and I mumbled yes. I only moved a few inches farther in and then it moved me back again. But now I was afraid that at any minute, I would be sucked further into this tube. I wasn't. It repeated the few inches again, but that was it.

My internal clock is telling me the 50 minutes are up. I decided that time had probably slowed down for me and I adjusted the time to 10 more minutes to go. I started counting down the minutes - 1, 2, 3, 4, bang, 5, groan, 6, whir, 6, I mean 7. It was almost impossible to concentrate with all the loud noises going on, so I had to keep readjusting my count. I finally reached 10 minutes - and it kept going.

What the heck. I had counted for 10 minutes and I could count for another 10 minutes. I was certain it would finish before I counted 10 more minutes. After 5 minutes everything got quiet. CCR is on the radio playing Looking Out My Back Door. If there was ever a sign, that was it. Hurray, done. Clang, bang, whir. Nope, false alarm.

I restart my countdown. Five more minutes. I count for 5 minutes and the darn thing keeps going. I am just ready to count for another 5 minutes and it suddenly gets quiet. I fell for that once and wasn't going to be fooled again. The technician is pulling me out and asking if I am OK. Done.

I apologize for being a baby and asked how long I was in. They said about an hour, so my internal clock was pretty close. I was under the impression it would be 50 minutes.

I get dressed, get a big drink of water, and go to my car. Maybe 10 minutes from getting out of MRI to getting to car. Check messages and doctor had called twice and scheduler once. The messages all said doc had already reviewed mri and no cancer was indicated. Go home. No need for biopsy.

Hurray for MRI, but next time I will look for an open one.

ETA: Did a little research and it looks like what I want is the wide 3t/MRI which is 4" larger in circumference with a shorter bore. I think my head would actually be outside of the tube during the mri.

lapilot said...
Richh,

That is funny. I too started counting to determine how long I was going to be in the tunnel. But finally gave up. Total time of MP-MRI was right at 2 hours (I don't think I can count that high).

Was it T1.5 or T3?

I wonder why the wide variation in time. Does a human intervene and take more passes at suspicious areas? Does the MRI recognize suspicious areas and make adjustments? Does a larger prostate take longer?

richh,

Sorry to read your experience. I had a 3T MRI and I don’t remember hearing the loud noise. I heard the machine humming and the operator was talking to me and telling me everything she was doing. My head and shoulders were outside on the machine. She often asked me how I was doing and she would tell me when she was moving parts of the machine. I closed my eyes and was half-a-sleep. Total time in the machine was less than one hour. Twenty minutes after getting dress, they give a CD of 1444 MRI images to take with me. Very nice 3D images. I was able to view the images on my computer. Not a bad experience.


houserocker