TIL before CT and MRI’s were available, doctors used to replace the fluid in and around the brain with air to do imaging with X-rays.
TIL before CT and MRI’s were available, doctors used to replace the fluid in and around the brain with air to do imaging with X-rays.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1779005
Apparently this was done because air captures less X-rays than CSF and thus creates more contrast with brain tissue compared to the cerebrospinal fluid.
Unfortunately this was pretty painful and uncomfortable.
Jesus Christ. I will never again complain about noisy, claustrophobic MRI machines.
I’m still not sure why every one hates them. I found my CT experience pretty soothing.
CT scans and MRIs are two different types of scans, done in different machines. A CT machine like a doughnut on its side - the hole you go in is wider and shorter. MRIs are more coffin-tubed shaped. If you go in feet first (for an MRI scan on your knee say) it’s ok because your head is on the outside. If you’re having a brain scan you go in head first, your head stabilised by a plastic support so you can’t move it. It’s so narrow in there you can’t bend your arm up 90 degrees, let alone sit up. The stabiliser stops you from moving at all. They put foam ear plugs in your ears and then big over ear headphones over that so the tech can talk to you and you’re not crippled by the noise. There’s a tiny mirror above your eyes, angled to you can see out of the tube. I’m not claustrophobic at all and I have to fight panic when I’m im in there. I think you may have had CT scans in the past, not MRIs. And if you had a MRI, you probably didn’t go in head first because it’s not really an experience anyone could describe as relaxing. Well maybe cave divers, or people who make homemade submarines might find it relaxing, but for your average joe it’s unpleasant.
MRI is much longer and louder than CT
Gives new meaning to the term “air head”.
I’ll see myself out, but only after I’ve read the Wikipedia article in full. Morbid curiosity and all that.
I know someone who had a leak of CSF after getting a spinal tap, and the pain was absolutely crippling if she did anything but lie flat on her back. No medicine did anything to help. I can't even imagine how painful it must be to have the CSF removed completely.
Well that just sounds awful. What’s not clear is how CSF gets back in there. Do they replace it or let the body figure it out on its own?
Not sure to be honest but i’m guessing that enough would be left and that the air would resorb and new CSF would be made in the ventricles.
I have to get an MRI every 6 months. This would be worse than my disease!
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