Pop quiz for fun!

[Joiedecour]

Things don't seem so great for a bunch of us lately....JJ is in the rabbit hole with fatigue, Alex, in spite of her awesome perspective, is getting runaround from medical professionals, Calamfred's husband is looking at possible termination of employment, Kwarendorf is/was having nighttime spasm issues, and I am still in the dreaded limbo. Sorry if I've missed some : ( I do try to read and remember as best as possible...
How's about's a pop quiz for fun? Post a photo of an mri image, with questions, so we can all hone our mri reading skills. I'll go first....here's an image...do you see any juxtacortical, periventricular, occipital lesions, or is it a completely normal mri???? Let's play like this, whoever is right, posts the next random image (google images is a great source, for both study and images!).

[Joiedecour]

Updating in the interests of helping others wondering whether to trust their docs and pay up. This is apparently a normal mri and rules out MS. It resembles my first on which same neuro identified 4 lesions. My conclusions...don't ask questions unless you need to be in an ER.

[Joiedecour]

My bad. The people have spoken. However, what I was suggesting was more along the lines of 'pick a random image from google images - most are annotated - post it and see what can be identified by others, given that the person posting it has access then to an answer key of sorts.'  

[immisceo]

Yeah, I'll be another party pooper. Interpreting medical tests isn't particular suited to crowdsourcing. The furtherest I ever go is helping clarify a bit of the medical speak found in the report, and this is only because a lot of us around here have seen it on our various MRI reports and discussed it subsequently with specialists. The imaging itself is a whole other ball game.

[SarahL2491]

I'm with JJ, it takes a skilled neuro to read these things and I shudder to even try and read my own.  When my neuro points things out, I then realize how wrong I was.

[supermum_ms]

I'm definitely a lover of playing games and having fun but I really really believe that this is one specialist area, that lay people should not even try in general to play around with, but what your asking for is very specific and personally, regardless of what i've learnt over the years, i wouldn't trust my self or expect any untrained person to be able to correctly answer this type of specifics.

I'm really sorry but i'm not sure how you would actually learn anything useful or informative about MRI's or specifically your own. It's a very complicated field to begin with and honestly the MRI report and conclusions are made after reviewing 'all' the slides. All i am comfortable with saying is that i don't see what poppy is seeing (5) and lol mine looks like a sieve in comparison.

I think from my perspective, what's most important information to have in regards to MS, is that because you have a dx of Optic Neuritis and at least a base line MRI which does have a few unspecified lesions, there is unfortunately a 'higher chance' of you being dx with MS at some stage in the future, together your evidence holds more meaning, than either alone....  http://www.ccjm.org/content/76/3/181.full

Cheers..........JJ

btw i wish it was only fatigue i was dealing with, my normal is just not normal by anyone's standards any more lol but the fatigue just makes it that much harder.......  

[Poppy7402]

I count five lesions.  Looks pretty similar to my MRI but I can't post images as I'm not clever enough sorry.

I have come to conclusion that sometimes these Neuro's know that we have MS but cannot tell us we do because we don't yet fit the McDonald criteria and they want their butts covered.

I've given up pursuing a diagnosis for now as I'm really well at the moment and apart from a recurrence of excruciating pain in my spine life is good.  I am quite sure an MS diagnosis will be forthcoming at some point but in the meantime it's full steam ahead planning our European cruise for June next year.  Yay!!