reading MRIs
Well, I just got a phone call informing me that my neurologist appointment was canceled. (Something important came up, they said. *ignorant shrug*) I'm being put on a cancellation list so that I can take someone else's appointment if they cancel. *impatient twiddle* If I'm lucky, I'll even get to see a doctor before the Tuesday morning one that I was planning on.
Good thing that I've been reading up on what few posts I can find that explain what other people have said about their MRI scans. Now I can make a very general assessment of my own scans.
MRIs work magnetically upon water molecules. Water shows up as white, and no-water shows up as black. That's why my eyeballs show up as great glowing spheres; they are mostly just water. With multiple sclerosis, a fatty sheath around neurons will disappear, leaving more room for water to fill the space. MRI brain scans of people with multiple sclerosis will show patches of fuzzy white areas where the nerve cells are losing their myelin sheath. Here's a photo of someone else's brain with these large white patches.
The good news is that I have no such patches.
white spots: I do, however, have several small white spots. These may be perfectly normal. They may show up (or so I've read online) as a normal part of the aging process. They may occur with high blood pressure (causing veins to bulge here and there). They may even result from diabetes. I'm not alarmed by the white dots on my scans.
black spots: I also have several small black spots. These are areas (again, so I've read online) of scar tissue. They may result from previously burst blood vessels or from recurring damage by multiple sclerosis. People who are active in contact sports (getting tackled, punched, etc.) should expect to see lots of these. I have only a few of them, so that's good.
The bad news is that most of these black spots seem to be near (inside or below) the corpus callosum, the area that connects the two halves of the brain. I don't know what that means, but I don't think it's a neutral or insignificant matter. (edit: I've been reassured that these can be perfectly normal.)
Those are two scans of my brain from the same series. "The same series" means I am looking at two different places in my brain, not the same place from different perspectives. Look in the middle of each photo near the "white butterfly". See the dots? They are 4 dots (2 in each slice), all seeming to me to be within the corpus callosum area. I wish I knew my brain areas better in 3 dimensions, so I could better judge the locations of these spots.
*big shrug of ignorance*
I'm now impatient for my opportunity to speak with a neurologist.
Good thing that I've been reading up on what few posts I can find that explain what other people have said about their MRI scans. Now I can make a very general assessment of my own scans.
MRIs work magnetically upon water molecules. Water shows up as white, and no-water shows up as black. That's why my eyeballs show up as great glowing spheres; they are mostly just water. With multiple sclerosis, a fatty sheath around neurons will disappear, leaving more room for water to fill the space. MRI brain scans of people with multiple sclerosis will show patches of fuzzy white areas where the nerve cells are losing their myelin sheath. Here's a photo of someone else's brain with these large white patches.
The good news is that I have no such patches.
white spots: I do, however, have several small white spots. These may be perfectly normal. They may show up (or so I've read online) as a normal part of the aging process. They may occur with high blood pressure (causing veins to bulge here and there). They may even result from diabetes. I'm not alarmed by the white dots on my scans.
black spots: I also have several small black spots. These are areas (again, so I've read online) of scar tissue. They may result from previously burst blood vessels or from recurring damage by multiple sclerosis. People who are active in contact sports (getting tackled, punched, etc.) should expect to see lots of these. I have only a few of them, so that's good.
The bad news is that most of these black spots seem to be near (inside or below) the corpus callosum, the area that connects the two halves of the brain. I don't know what that means, but I don't think it's a neutral or insignificant matter. (edit: I've been reassured that these can be perfectly normal.)
Those are two scans of my brain from the same series. "The same series" means I am looking at two different places in my brain, not the same place from different perspectives. Look in the middle of each photo near the "white butterfly". See the dots? They are 4 dots (2 in each slice), all seeming to me to be within the corpus callosum area. I wish I knew my brain areas better in 3 dimensions, so I could better judge the locations of these spots.
*big shrug of ignorance*
I'm now impatient for my opportunity to speak with a neurologist.