EH MRI

So I just had my MRI today. Not awesome. In fact I freaked out and started to have a mild panic attack. My hip is hyper sensitive right now and the thought of having anything put into that joint scared me a lot. So I was crying and having shortness of breath. The nurse held me down and they strapped my legs down. BTW IT DID HURT! If you have ever had a root canal or a shot in your mouth to numb it and the shot went through a nerve and that TWANG feeling, then that is what it feels like. They numbed the skin with lidocain but its only topical. At first it was a tiny prick where the needle went in. Then when he put the needle in it was mild discomfort and a kind of vibration feeling but I have no idea what that would be from since I could not see what was going on. So it was in the flouroscopy/x-ray room where the physicians use an imaging technique to get real-time moving images of the inside of the body and this is called flouroscopy.  So he kept looking at the screen and then moving the needle a little deeper. This is when it started to hurt. About 5 times I was experiencing the TWANG of nerves. The doc said it was the pain of entering the inflamed joint cavity. Well DUH! lol yeah it is very much inflamed and angry at me. And that was the reason I was freaking out to begin with. Then he said we were done, told me to take a deep breath and blow out and he pulled out the needle while spraying the dye all over my bare legs. Yay!!

So then very carefully I moved onto another non-magnetic stretcher and wheeled down to MRI. This bed is very unstable and wiggles around while rolling so we crashed into 2 things lol. COMFORTING :) So I am experiencing extreme discomfort and just want to MOVE but moving disrupts the dye and that is not what we want. The MRI machine is huge and the table you lay on is so skinny. So they put pillows under my head and knees, gave me some headphones. Wrapped some foam "antennae/sensors" around both hips and strapped them down and then taped my feet together. And then we began.

My appointment was at 11:20. Called back at 11:40. Made me take a pregnancy test and got changed at 11:56. Then at 12:00 they started the dye injection. This ended at 12:25 25 mins!! And MRI started at 12:30.  The MRI process part lasted 45 minutes. There were several different scans that lasted anywhere from 1.5 mins to 5.5 mins and during the breaks is when I moved lol. While i was in there i was having muscle spasms and thought I was ruining it but after, I asked them about it and I guess many people do not feel the spasms but the MRI machine does that. It makes your muscles spasm and twitch. My left leg, fingers and face was twitching mildly. I guess the hardest part about the MRI part would be the part where my hip and knee were in pain and I could not move to alleviate the pain. The MRI machine was pretty relaxing actually. The sound of the scan I could hear over the music in the headphones was soothing and everything vibrated with the sound so it was soothing actually. I wanted to sleep but I was twitching and thought I was messing up so I didn't fall asleep.

Now home, 8 hours later I am still feeling pain when I step and move my hip joint. I cant take a full stride and hopefully it goes away soon. The MRI techs said it would be about 8 hours and should be fine. Took a few pain meds earlier and it did not help. I will just have to ride it out.

That is my experience with my first MRI and I REALLY hope it ends up being wonderful scans and we can see everything :D