Abnormal MRI

I will NEVER forget it!!!

This was many years ago, I had been in my kitchen when the right side of my temple, well there was a feeling, kind of like “bip bup”. Can’t explain it any other way. Now I never get headaches, it just isn’t my thing.

So of course, neurotic old me, gets a headache, so what do I immediately think? I think I’m dying!!! I go to my doctor and he says “we’ll send you for am mri, you might have had a mini-stroke” I almost went nuts. I felt absolutely fine but he wasn’t taking any chances.

So I go to the emergency room and I tell them about the Bip Bup thing that happened on the right side of my head. These neurologists come over and they’re making me walk on my toes, walk on the heels of my feet, check my balance, touch my fingertip to my nose (you know the standard neuro examination). Everything was fine!!! So they send me for something called a MRA (which stands for Magnetic Resonance Angiograph) I believe.

I slid into the tunnel and they took an MRI of my head.

Well, you should have seen the guys all in a huddle, when my pictures came out. For some inexplicable reason, they call me into the room (where all the MRI films come up on a computer screen), and they ask me “what is this thing in your head” and I look at the screen and there (by my nose) is an image (I can only tell you what it looked like, NOT WHAT IT WAS!!!) It looked like an implant, no other way to describe it. It was about an inch long, straight up and down and it was JUST THERE!!!

The guys ask me “what is this?” and I said “what the hell do I know what this is, and I freak out and I go WHAT IS THIS THING IN MY FACE???

And they are looking and looking and it’s like a little beam of light on the screen (inside my head). So they come to the ultimate conclusion that it’s an ANOMALY!!! Now I have no idea what that meant.

They assured me that sometimes things show up on films that are not there.

I said “this thing looks like an implant, don’t you agree?” and they all laughed and said “well, actually it does, but we know it can’t be”. I said “my god, this should be an episode of the x-files”. I ran over to where my husband Alan was waiting and I said “you’re not going to believe this but I have an implant in my head”. He says “you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies”. I call up my friends, they think I’ve lost my mind. A whole bunch of neuros kept coming up to me (while I’m in the emergency room cubicle) and they’re making me do all the neuro tests (over and over).

This took 8 hours approximately. Then they wanted to do a spinal tap.
I went home after they said this. I got scared. I felt fine by the way. no headache.

The next day my doctor tells me “get back to the hospital and get a spinal tap, it’s the only way to know for sure”. So I go back and I go right to the same place and I said “my doctor wants me to have a spinal tap, AND BY THE WAY, I HAVE AN ARTHRITIC SPINE, I HAVE DEGENERATIVE JOINT DISEASE”.

Not one doctor would touch me. I went home.

Never had the bip-bup thing in my head ever again.

However, when the weather changes drastically or I am under a great deal of stress, I do get a pain in the right side of my temple. It goes away in a few seconds.

Hasn’t happened that often in the past years. I don’t even think about it.

The report of the MRA said I was absolutely fine, didn’t have stroke, etc. etc. Whatever reports say when they don’t find anything.

What the report did not mention was the ANOMALY.

So I hope the image that was found on your mri turns out to be nothing.

Keeping fingers crossed.

Melody

Melody, Bet it did feeel kinda of twilght zone-ish. They found something strange with my MRI when I went in before my dx of CIDP. We thought a nerve was tangled up in my maxed out hip, hence causing the pain and tingling,;I did my MRI, went home and got a frantic call to come back, they wanted to do another MRI at no charge to me. Wouldn’t tell me more than there was something they really needed another look at. From there I was at a neuro and the rest is CIDP history. All I got out of them was a section of nerve in my leg was “like really dead or something”. I think of myself like a big old lab rat sometimes, there must be hardly anyone in my neck of the woods with CIDP as anytime I’m in the ER it turns into a group study.

Hello, Emily!
I know with my MRI’s, they were coming back clear but I am still instructed to have one every year. The reason being (I was told) is because there are incredibly small lesions that a person can have on their spine that may not show up for years and then do all of a sudden.
I hope yours is nothing as I know you’ve already been dealt a lot with the CIDP. Please let us know what you find out!

Great news, Emily!!! Thanks for the update!

Leanne

Hey Emily, praying for the best for you. Please keep us updated.

Jerimy

[B]That’s great news Emily, hope the good news stays that way forever.[/B]

Great news, Emily!!
😀

My brain MRIs have shown “white spots” since I started getting them years ago. Just not “enough” of them to support a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (…yet.)

I’ve always questioned whether demyleination in one area (I have CIDP) and demyleination elsewhere, like the brain, aren’t kind of the same process. (We don’t question when someone has the same rash in several places that it’s related, right? Kind of like that.) Especially since I have progressive CIDP, and am now (after many years) beginning to experience symptoms that indicate I also have autonomic neuropathy.

The multiple white spots would mean something if there were MORE of them… but it’s hard for me to accept that the ones that are there mean NOTHING. But that’s how it works!