MRI's and claustrophobia

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

Chris515

Chris515

Veteran
Supporter
Messages
552
Reaction score
7
Points
133
Just a quick question...

Does anyone here suffer from claustrophobia? I do and I've got an MRI tonight, I'm not really looking forward to it... This will be my fourth one but I still can't get used to them.

I'm starting to get really nervous and stressed out. Does anyone have any tips to get through these things?

Thanks!
Chris
 
Some places will have music to play while you are having the MRI. If they do, bring along a favorite CD. If it is too bad, some doctors may offer a med to help you through. My sister had those a couple of times.

Come up with a group of things to think about ahead of time, lots of list type of things. Favorite foods, favorite music, future goals, tasks needed to be done around the house, etc...

Just some thoughts to help.
 
a technician told me that when taking the MRI to either keep my eyes closed & relax or stay focused on the mirror that points out. Surprisingly those things (and the music) did work
 
My father has the same problem, he found the open MRI to be much easier to handle. Not sure if these are readily available in Canada like they are in US
 
I hope it goes well for you. Try and focus on a happy memory, or a pleasant thing you enjoy. Something you are looking forward to. Just try and distract yourself. It should go quickly.

Good luck and be well
joan*
 
Rebecca's was open, and she had the ability to talk with the technician if she wanted to. She doesn't find it difficult to lay still though so it went smoothly... twice.

Practice some relaxation techniques Chris before you go, and then put them to use tonight.
 
RobinN said:
Rebecca's was open, and she had the ability to talk with the technician if she wanted to.
Click to expand...

All the tube ones that I've been in have used either speakers or headphones with a microphone somewhere in there so that there could be full communication.

When they took me off my meds to be monitored I told them I was scared of convulsing. The tech asked if I got auras & when I said yes, she asked if giving me a button to hold if I felt one coming on would help me relax.

Be honest with the techs about your stresses, they're pretty experienced in dealing with that & know how to help (at least in my experience).

Good luck tonight and remember...... take long deep breaths.
 
We've taken a few MRI's on both kids and none of their Drs would allow us to use an open MRI. They "claim" they didnt get as clear a picture as they did with closed. Just fyi.

joan*
 
Thanks for the advice everyone.

Relax techniques worked well, so did the Lorazapan.

It was only 20 minutes, so I just layed there focusing on my breathing and counting to 1200.

Since it was at 9:00 and I didn't get to sleep for a while, my boss was nice enough to let me sleep in and show up to work a few hours late. I feel lucky that I have a supportive workplace.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom