Spinal MRI Pics!

[jensequitur]

Check my personal space for pictures of my spinal MRI.  As expected, they are grainy and hard to read, especially since I have no idea what I'm looking at.  I can look at these, though, and see stuff that looks like it's not supposed to be there.  And stuff that's there that shouldn't be there.

Thoracic #2
Two patchy areas of lighter gray (indicated by arrows)

Thoracic #1
Two bright areas that look like lesions at the dorsal area of the cord.

Cervical #3
What the h e l l is that bright little dot there?  An artifact from the scan?  Or a lesion?  It looks weird.

Cervical Spine #2
I see two weird things.  One is the lack of a white line on the left side of my cord.  Looks like some sort of impingement of the cord, along with some cord damage.  I've seen similar MRIs from people with B12 deficiency.  The other thing is a lighter gray area on the right side of my cord.

Cervical Spine #1
This is something called a Myelo.  I have no idea what kind of scan this is - maybe Flair?  But there's a weird white spot at the same area as the lighter gray area in other scans.

FYI - these are all done with a 0.7 MRI open-bore machine.  The radiologist has not submitted his report yet - this is the pictures from the CD I received yesterday.  So I'm still worried.  Nothing obvious that I can point to and say yes, definitely that's a lesion.  But it looks like something, at least.

Those of you who have spinal lesions, I'd love to hear your opinion!

[Fluffysmom]

Hi, I found your post after seeing your pictures.  Two of the cervical weren't showing up when I tried looking at them, but I'm impressed; the quality of this .7T is better than other's I've seen.

Will you be able to pick up the radiologist's report today, or do you have to wait for a follow-up appointment?

I have some patchy areas in my thoracic spine on a 1.5 T, that my neuro dismisssed as artifact, even though it's visible on two different views.  I'll be very interested in how your patchy area is discussed.  Of course, you have more severe symptoms than I do, as I recall.

Thanks for sharing.

Kathy

[jensequitur]

I'll have to wait for the follow-up to hear what the radiologist says.  I thought these shots weren't too bad, either - for a .7T!  I think it had a lot to do with the magnetic coils placed across the torso and neck.

it's trouble to try and read your MRI films yourself, because things that look abnormal to you might be perfectly okay if you just knew your MRI anatomy better.  So I've tried to just pick out the stuff that's obviously abnormal...  Ah, well!  We'll see what the radiologist has to say.

[Wobbly]

Hi there...just wondering the arrows...did you add them there, or were they on the pics?  also can you add your C spine ones... I hope you get answers soon with these... it certainly looks like something?  but what I'm not sure..

take care
wobbly
undx

[jensequitur]

Yeah, I added the arrows!  I figured it was difficult enough to see what was going on.

Try clicking on 'view all' on my photos if you're having trouble seeing the cervical spine ones.  They're showing up fine on my profile - I'm not sure why they're not coming up for ya'll.

[jensequitur]

Tell ya what... try this link:

http://www.medhelp.org/photo_collections/list/464?personal_page_id=2546

I put all the photos into one album.  Let's see if that works any better.

[Lulu54]

Hi all,
I'm not sure why the medhelp moderator deleted a post by jensequitur on this thread, but it lists an excellent website to learn more about mri's - the text is every bit as informative as the pictures!  Thanks for putting the address out there - I was able to see the censored post and copy the url.  So for all of you let's try this one again  - www.radiologyassistant.nl/en/4556dea65db62#p4594f74ccbf19   and see if it stays up.  Like I said the text and the pics are great.  Thanks again for posting this link, Lulu

[jensequitur]

Thanks for reposting it, Lulu!  This link has come in handy many times.

I've gone through the results of the MRI (again) and I don't see anything in the spine that screams LESION!  The cervical, however, is another matter.  That weird white spot in the neck, and the other white spot lower down, seems abnormal to me.

[Lulu54]

Thanks to you Jen for finding this wonderful site.  I even posted it on my womenheart board - the cardiology section is equally amazing.  I also put this on our HP about www resources.  I hope everyone takes a look at this site.  Be well, Lulu

[jensequitur]

It's interesting... I've looked at these scans so many times, that you'd think I would have given up by now.  But I think I'm seeing some stuff I didn't notice before, or wasn't sure of.

http://www.medhelp.org/user_photos/show/49447?personal_page_id=2546

The image on the left is of my t-spine with contrast.  The right is a myelo - don't know what that is.  Take a look.  Am i crazy?

I'm beginning to believe that there are two lesions in my thoracic - one above the braline (maybe T2 or T3) and one below the braline (T8 or so.)  It also looks like there's atrophy of the spinal cord.  That white thickening on the right side is unusual - all the scans I've seen of spinal cords with atrophy have that thickening.

Still haven't heard back from the neurologist for the results of my scans, so I know how fruitless this is!  Argh argh argh.  Hate waiting.

Some tidbits of info for ya'll - while learning about spinal cord atrophy, I found that it happens in the white matter parts of the spinal cord, and is more common in the cervical, because there's more white matter.  Unlike brain atrophy, which is theorized to be because of volume loss due to lesions, spine atrophy is a simple loss of white matter - just like the thinning optic nerves, it just withers away.