MRI and Tinnitus stopped - briefly!

[SueX]

So yesterday I had an MRI scan on a 3 tesla MRI machine. I am really claustraphobic and at the end of last year I had an MRI with contrast and an MRI without contrast but both on an OPEN machine. I was told that the results were not accurate enough. I was advised to go in a 3 tesla closed MRI scanner. I was very nervous - partly because of the claustraphobia but also because I'd read that the noise in a 3T scanner is much greater than a convention scanner. Imagine my surpsied when after the scan for the whole of the rest of the day my tinnitus was much much quieter....!! Sadly it hasn't lasted and it's back today but it was so weird (and nice) yesterday getting that brief break 😀

[Pazzypants]

I couldn’t do the mri sue for same reasons so they have referred me for ct scan instead and a vestibular brain stem test

[SueX in reply to Pazzypants]

I have not been in a lift for over 10 years but...I managed to get myself in a closed MRI machine yesterday! What helped was telling myself that only by doing that could I potentially get a diagnosis and maybe a cure. I have also had a CT scan with contrast but that doesn't give a full picture. Ideally it's good to have an MRI on a closed machine AND a CT. There is a type of closed MRI machine called an 'open bore'. This is still a CLOSED machine (ie you are in a tunnel) but the open bore is much wider. Also, the tunnel itself is shorter. I found it fairly easy to tolerate yesterday. I could see out through the end. And I checked that in an emergency I could crawl out the tube easily (not that I ever would but I needed that to get the confidence to go in it). So if you had the possiblity of a convention 'closed' scan but on an open bore machine that would give them the images they need.

[Pazzypants in reply to SueX]

Thanks that information is very helpful

[SueX]

Everyone here will have different experiences - I was told at my very first appointment (which was literally in a hut with an ENT associate) to just live with tinnitus! I decided to not accept that view. I will live with it if I have to - ie if there's no cause established. But without doing the tests one can't know that. So I have had to push for other appiontments and it's been stressful. Sounds like you are already under a hospital who are offering tests, which is great. Maybe see if the MRI they have in that hospital is an 'open bore' one. That might make it possible for you to then have a conventional scan. As I say an 'open bore' is still a closed machine - but the bore (tunnel) is wider and shorter. I would not have believed I could have got in a closed machine....even my partner dropping me off at the station yesterday was preparing himself for me returning saying I hadn't been able to get in the machine. But it really was not bad!