Okay, I had my MRI yesterday for my migraines. I'm not sure what the dimensions on the open upright MRI are, but you can see pictures of it here. From shoulder to shoulder, I'm about 22" wide, and my hips take up 22" when I'm seated, and in order to fit my shoulders in that space, I had to raise my arms straight out in front of me and cross them. Not much could be done to make my hips narrower, and it was a tight squeeze getting me in there when I was seated. But once I was in there, and tilted back a bit, and they lowered the seat, I was fine (well, other than the fact that raised, crossed arms pushed the rack of doom up around my neck). I had to take a lot of short, shallow breaths while I was in there, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle, once I got used to it. Yeah, I was still squished, but it wasn't painful like it is when you sit in one of those doctor's office chairs with the arms and the seat is too narrow (maybe the fact that it had solid sides and was squishing me evenly on the fat and not hitting my bones had something to do with that). Most of the scans only lasted 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 minutes and I could move my feet and hands between scans if I had to (and I found out that if my foot moved, even though my head was still perfectly still, it showed up as head movement, they had to redo one scan when my leg spasmed once). They told me I did very well.
My doctor should have the results by Monday, so I should know some time next week what they found out. DH went with me, and when I came out, the first thing he asked me was if they had confirmed that I have a brain (he's such an ass sometimes....LOL).
All in all, it was a pretty good experience, and I have to say that their waiting room is awesome. My ass actually fit in their chairs with room to spare (and all of their seating was like that), and the chairs were comfortable and easy to get out of even with arthritic knees. So, if I ever have to have another MRI, that is definitely the place I want to be referred to. The staff are friendly and really accommodating (and the one who started my IV, she was good, I never felt a thing when she put the needle in and then flushed it).
So, for anyone who has been told that they won't fit in an MRI, that's not necessarily the truth. CDI has locations in Washington state, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Florida. I don't know if all of the locations have the open upright MRI, but if you need an MRI and don't fit in the regular sized machines, it's certainly worth checking out (and in Minneapolis locations, they also have the open-sided MRI that can handle people up to 500 lbs, and they do sedated MRIs if need be).
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