Bushy's BLOG » prognosis http://bushymills.com Ex South African engineer living and experiencing Brisbane, Australia Sat, 12 May 2012 03:47:30 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= MS brain MRI http://bushymills.com/2007/12/04/brainmri/ http://bushymills.com/2007/12/04/brainmri/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:43:38 +0000 bushy http://bushymills.com/2007/12/04/brainmri/ Multiple sclerosis affects not only the spine but also the brain. The disease destroys parts of brain but luckily the brain is able to rewire itself – well to a point ;-( There have also been studies that show a short-term brain volume change in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS).

So two weeks later, the brain MRI for confirmation after the spinal MRI.

To have the privilege of fastening your head next to jack hammer for 45 minutes to an hour will set you back $540. This examination is definitely not for you if you stuffer from claustrophobia ;-)

The invite – specialist neurologist script – a piece of plain penned paper is another $100.

But wait that’s not all!

To make the brain MRI work well, you get an injection for an extra $40. The MRI injection contains a contrast agent called gadolinium. Once absorbed into the bloodstream, it allows the radiologist to see the functioning of the brain.

Brain MRI

The gadolinium contrast agent changes the magnetization properties of the blood. The advice given is to drink lots of water afterwards to flush the gadolinium out of your system – I chose beer.

Once again, I tried to extract some details from the radiologist but got turned down – talk to the neurologist!

To look at an image on the CD, the neurologist confirmed that the MRI revealed more lesions – multiple sclerosis prognosis!! For this jewel of information, I parted with $100 + $35.

Time to join the two million and counting club of multiple sclerosis sufferers.

Did you know that “sclerosis” means “scars“? Well, looks like I’ve got a whole lot of ‘em.

No effective multiple sclerosis treatment exists, currently an incurable disease, reduces life expectancy by at least 7 years, gets progressively more debilitating over time – sounds like old age ;-)

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