Magnetic Resonance Imaging - Unchanged Since 1985

8/18/12
Hi there!  Let's talk about MRI's.  I have  been told that MRI's will be a permanent fixture in my life.  I hate them.  I'm really claustrophobic and there is nothing in nature that sounds like that.  I never get used to the noise, it's really loud, for 20 plus minutes.  I am in a narrow tube all alone, if I falter, I have to start all over again.  So, I never, ever, falter.  Since I have (Thank God) long finished Radiation and Chemotherapy, a MRI every so often, shouldn't be any big deal, right?  Wrong.  They are scheduled just far enough apart so you forget just how loud and obnoxious the process is.  And long.  It's nobody's fault, I have always been fairly phobic, but being inside a big, noisy, tube has brought that fear into focus.  Realizing that many people feel something akin to my feelings where being locked into a noisy tube is concerned,  the lab I go to offered tranquilizers, which I gratefully accepted.  I was a nervous wreck anyway and they gave me 10mg, or one tiny pill of Ativan.  Now Ativan, (or Lorazepam) apparently sedates a lot of people, it has the opposite effect on me.  Not only am I extra sensitive, I'm also bat-shit crazy with Ativan.  I took the little, sad, pill, thinking the professionals knew what they were talking about (they did not know me, or anyone like me).  So I was keenly aware of how entombed I was, every noise was amplified and the minutes crawled by.  That I have to repeat this process at least annually, probably more often puts me in a panic!  I've got another one coming up.  And no, Ativan will NOT be on the menu.  18 miles/2 Walks today