Posted: 5/24/2016 4:48:20 AM EDT
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I had a freaky experience during my 3rd MRI yesterday. During a 5 minute phase about half complete my upper abdomen felt like it had a runaway out of balance motor under my diaphram. It was pretty severe and I almost punched the "Let Me Out RightFuckingNow" switch. I felt like it was thrashing in tune with the MRI machine next to my Aorta which put me in a bit of a cold sweat as I attempted to hold my guts steady with a forearm. The next 5 minute run had a little bit of the same thing going on but only about one fifth as strong. I managed to hang on and made it thru the last couple minute runs until the friendly blonde operator let me free. I asked the Nurse as soon as I got out and she had never had a complaint like mine, discussed possible metal objects where they should not be. First and 2nd MRIs were in 94 and nothing like this was felt in any way. Do I have some metal in me? I had gall bladder removal about 4 years ago, stray staple maybe, and I was stabbed in 67 in the right side by an unknown object. Maybe I will ask my doc for an xray. Is it possible for the magnetic field to interact with gas or liquids? I am sore in the upper right abdomen like I did a bunch of situps right now. I actually hung out near the hospital for and hour or so in case I had some strange internal bleeding going on, it was that intense. |
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Are you sure you had MR's before.
Without knowing more, that could be a metallic (specifically ferrous) fb. They can heat up or rip out of your body. If you had an MR, was it the same part of the body? Sometimes things won't get excited unless they're in the bore of the magnet--altho high magnetic fields exist all around it. |
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Quoted: Were your previous MRIs of the same area of the body? Are you sure you didn't have CT scans previously? Seems like a silly question but MRI wasn't very widespread that long ago. |
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Yes, all 3 for C spine. Had one Cat also. We have two first class hospitals, I actually had one MRI done in Seattle to try and get a better pic after having my first done here. Quoted:
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Were your previous MRIs of the same area of the body? Are you sure you didn't have CT scans previously? Seems like a silly question but MRI wasn't very widespread that long ago. I just had surgery on my c spine last week. I've had four MRIs of the area and they were all weird as hell, but no pulling like you describe. You sure it wasn't an anxiety or panic attack? Or just a bout of hypochondria? 
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If you had ferrous metal inside you, that would have been apparent immediately as you neared the machines base magnetic field. Even small ferrous material (small enough to not really torque any flesh in the field) would have been real apparent in any images. Usually leaves black voids.
You state it seemed to time to the machine's pulsing. Those are gradient pulses. Strong radio freq. Maybe a non-ferrous metal object was being torqued via Lenz effect? I recall one research volunteer they scrubbed because she had stainless steel aneurism clips in her brain. Docs were afraid of static field and gradient pulses might joogle around in there. Maybe you do have a staple inside??? Seems an Xray would tell that tale. |
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If you had ferrous metal inside you, that would have been apparent immediately as you neared the machines base magnetic field. Even small ferrous material (small enough to not really torque any flesh in the field) would have been real apparent in any images. Usually leaves black voids. You state it seemed to time to the machine's pulsing. Those are gradient pulses. Strong radio freq. Maybe a non-ferrous metal object was being torqued via Lenz effect? I recall one research volunteer they scrubbed because she had stainless steel aneurism clips in her brain. Docs were afraid of static field and gradient pulses might joogle around in there. Maybe you do have a staple inside??? Seems an Xray would tell that tale. Cholecystectomy staples shouldn't cause problems in an MR field, tho. |
| I have an MRI done every six months. The technicians and my Dr all think I'm crazy when I tell them that I can actually feel it when the MRI is pulsing and doing it's imaging thing. It's nothing like what you've described, there's no pain or discomfort, just a weird sensation. Then again I also have to fight to stay awake when I'm in the tube; I'm weird like that. |
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I have an MRI done every six months. The technicians and my Dr all think I'm crazy when I tell them that I can actually feel it when the MRI is pulsing and doing it's imaging thing. It's nothing like what you've described, there's no pain or discomfort, just a weird sensation. Then again I also have to fight to stay awake when I'm in the tube; I'm weird like that. It's not weird at all, I've absolutely felt every one of mine. Like you said, it's not painful, but I can literally feel it moving up or down my torso as the machine moves me in the tube. Strange but not bothersome. My wife has has several with the same sensations. |
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I'm a MRI technologist of 15 years. What you describe is most likely peripheral nerve stimulation combined with some anxiety after you started to feel the magnetic gradients switching. I've had patients describe similar things, even flashing lights where the gradients are stimulating the optic nerve. It's rare but some people are more susceptible to it than others. It also has to do with the slew rate and strength of the gradients during a particular pulse sequence.
Bioeffects of Gradient magnetic fields. |
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I have an MRI done every six months. The technicians and my Dr all think I'm crazy when I tell them that I can actually feel it when the MRI is pulsing and doing it's imaging thing. It's nothing like what you've described, there's no pain or discomfort, just a weird sensation. Then again I also have to fight to stay awake when I'm in the tube; I'm weird like that. Count me as crazy, too. I can feel the beam when its slicing through my head.  The techs where I had my MRIs done said that they will occasionally get someone that complains about that.
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Count me as crazy, too. I can feel the beam when its slicing through my head. The techs where I had my MRIs done said that they will occasionally get someone that complains about that.Quoted:
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I have an MRI done every six months. The technicians and my Dr all think I'm crazy when I tell them that I can actually feel it when the MRI is pulsing and doing it's imaging thing. It's nothing like what you've described, there's no pain or discomfort, just a weird sensation. Then again I also have to fight to stay awake when I'm in the tube; I'm weird like that. Count me as crazy, too. I can feel the beam when its slicing through my head. The techs where I had my MRIs done said that they will occasionally get someone that complains about that.I thought I felt the same thing on my one and only MRI. I then realized I was feeling the tension I was placing on the tape that they used to secure my head. |
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I thought I felt the same thing on my one and only MRI. I then realized I was feeling the tension I was placing on the tape that they used to secure my head. Quoted:
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I have an MRI done every six months. The technicians and my Dr all think I'm crazy when I tell them that I can actually feel it when the MRI is pulsing and doing it's imaging thing. It's nothing like what you've described, there's no pain or discomfort, just a weird sensation. Then again I also have to fight to stay awake when I'm in the tube; I'm weird like that. Count me as crazy, too. I can feel the beam when its slicing through my head. The techs where I had my MRIs done said that they will occasionally get someone that complains about that.I thought I felt the same thing on my one and only MRI. I then realized I was feeling the tension I was placing on the tape that they used to secure my head. No tape on my MRIs. My skin would feel warm where the beam was slicing through my head. I'd have an instantly warm band of skin all the way around my head from where the beam passed through.. and then it would move to the next slice and do the same thing... and so on..
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20 year mri tech here. Agree with nate up above. Most likely you felt some nerve stimulation, albeit a more extreme case. Without knowing the sequence being run, which system it was on, it is more difficult to say this is it for sure. However, magnets generally have faster gradients and possibly a higher field strength then when your previous was done. Some people just notice it more readily than others. Metallic foreign body would be a much less likely concern given your history and what happened. Interactions with fluid or gasses? Not likely to be what caused this.
Next time squeeze the damn ball! Oh, and talk to the mr tech, most nurses are clueless about the physics behind mri. That is actually a form of entertainment to me, listening to them tap dance through questions about our machines. Well, up until they start pulling facts out of thin air and making stuff up. |
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No tape on my MRIs. My skin would feel warm where the beam was slicing through my head. I'd have an instantly warm band of skin all the way around my head from where the beam passed through.. and then it would move to the next slice and do the same thing... and so on.. Quoted:
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I have an MRI done every six months. The technicians and my Dr all think I'm crazy when I tell them that I can actually feel it when the MRI is pulsing and doing it's imaging thing. It's nothing like what you've described, there's no pain or discomfort, just a weird sensation. Then again I also have to fight to stay awake when I'm in the tube; I'm weird like that. Count me as crazy, too. I can feel the beam when its slicing through my head. The techs where I had my MRIs done said that they will occasionally get someone that complains about that.I thought I felt the same thing on my one and only MRI. I then realized I was feeling the tension I was placing on the tape that they used to secure my head. No tape on my MRIs. My skin would feel warm where the beam was slicing through my head. I'd have an instantly warm band of skin all the way around my head from where the beam passed through.. and then it would move to the next slice and do the same thing... and so on.. I know that is what YOU feel, but that isn't even how an mri works. The entire body part being imaged is excited for each image, the machine differentiates slice locations by the frequencies it "listens" to. With rare exception do we excite only one slice at a time. Rare exception. |
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Yes, I've had a similar experience.
I had three MRIs for my lower back - same machine, all within about a year of each other. No stress or fear of tight places - heck, they have a tv set up to watch if you don't fall asleep. During one of them I felt like something was exciting the natural frequency of my intestines - it became worrisome and I considered hitting the stop button as it was severe enough for me to be concerned about internal damage. I didn't as my back hurt enough I didn't want to have to go through it again, though. It did have some interesting side effects a couple of days later (some folks on here joke about people getting their s*** packed - this actually did that, and was the only time in my life that anything like that has occurred. Two days later it looked like my entire colon exited all at once, and the most densely packed I've ever seen). I include the last just as supportive evidence - the MRI did somehow shake my innards around, and did have an effect. No apparent damage, and it wasn't repeated in the other two MRIs (and similar eating habits before those as well), so I chalked it up as just one of those things. I'm also curious as to any possible explanations - I didn't pursue it at the time beyond mentioning it to my orthopedist as I was more concerned with my back at the time, and I don't recall him responding as he was also more concerned with my back at the time. And I had no surgeries, implants, or other metal objects inside me at the time. |
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Quoted: Yes, I've had a similar experience. I had three MRIs for my lower back - same machine, all within about a year of each other. No stress or fear of tight places - heck, they have a tv set up to watch if you don't fall asleep. During one of them I felt like something was exciting the natural frequency of my intestines - it became worrisome and I considered hitting the stop button as it was severe enough for me to be concerned about internal damage. I didn't as my back hurt enough I didn't want to have to go through it again, though. It did have some interesting side effects a couple of days later (some folks on here joke about people getting their s*** packed - this actually did that, and was the only time in my life that anything like that has occurred. Two days later it looked like my entire colon exited all at once, and the most densely packed I've ever seen). I include the last just as supportive evidence - the MRI did somehow shake my innards around, and did have an effect. No apparent damage, and it wasn't repeated in the other two MRIs (and similar eating habits before those as well), so I chalked it up as just one of those things. I'm also curious as to any possible explanations - I didn't pursue it at the time beyond mentioning it to my orthopedist as I was more concerned with my back at the time, and I don't recall him responding as he was also more concerned with my back at the time. And I had no surgeries, implants, or other metal objects inside me at the time. |
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Quoted: I'm a MRI technologist of 15 years. What you describe is most likely peripheral nerve stimulation combined with some anxiety after you started to feel the magnetic gradients switching. I've had patients describe similar things, even flashing lights where the gradients are stimulating the optic nerve. It's rare but some people are more susceptible to it than others. It also has to do with the slew rate and strength of the gradients during a particular pulse sequence. Bioeffects of Gradient magnetic fields. As this scan was supposedly my upper spine I didn't expect the rapid pulsing in that location. I didn't want to stop the procedure just to have it redone so I just endured it. Sore but I'll live, maybe I will ask for an xray tomorrow when I see my Dr. |