Anyone had an MRI or CT scan?

[Jezza]

Hi there,

Looking for possible underlying causes of HH, you come across quite some exotic diseases...mostly spinal cord or brain abnormalities, rare tumors (for instance, syringomyelia + Chiari malformation, pheochromcytoma, pituitary gland tumors and a whole bunch of other random bad things)

Most of these I think could all be examined by undergoing an MRI scan of the spine/chest + head...because IMHO, things like that would show up on there.

Although it might be kind of stupid to hope for something like this, the prospect of identifying a cause that can be cured is probably what we're all hoping for, no matter how scary it sounds. Have an operation or two, some recovery, be done with it...

Anyway, I was wondering if someone here ever underwent an MRI scan. I believe in Europe medics are reluctant to prescribe such a scan, probably because of costs (I don't know exactly, the machines are expensive for sure, but if you have them anyway...) but I've heard in the US it's more common practise...Some people apparently even have them as part of a yearly check-up.

If not it might be worth it to all start pushing for one. Who knows, if they find something in even a small percentage of us that should give the medics reason enough to take HH a little more seriously I should think.

 

[blong]

I have had both scans as a result of (american) football injurys. I had a CT scan of my brain and a MRI of my lower spinal column. That would be interesting if they picked something up, but in the case of the MRI and CT it is not a fully body scan, they pick out a specific area and scan that, and depending on what they are looking for only scan for that one thing -> at least my understanding. CT scans are not as detailed and are meant only to find bigger abnormalities (deformity, anurisms (sp), tumors.

I am not ruling out a CT scan picking something up, or that an MRI might pick something up in our lower backs. In the case of my CT scan they were specifically looking for bleeding in my brain and in the case of my MRI they were specifically looking for lumbar disc damage.

I agree that having a full neuological work up may produce some sort of abnormality.

Maybe it is that simple, I would especially like to see a full MRI scan of the entire brain/spinal column nervous system. Maybe you are right and there is a small growth/tumor/something that should not be there that is causing this. Interesting

 

[sadday]

I've had CT and MRI scans done because I have a brain tumor. The tumor doesn't cause sweating just seizures. I've had brain surgery to remove it but it was unsuccessful.

 

[Jezza]

Wow... 8O

I'm very sorry to hear that.

And they are certain the two are unrelated?

pff...talk about shock and awe.

Anyway, I hope you'll be alright then.

 

[sadday]

When I told my neurologist about having HH she didn't even know what I was talking about...lol. But as far as the tumor goes I'm doing fine with that. The only problem is I was taking Avert and having great success with it stopping the sweating but when I found out I had a brain tumor (which was only about 8 months ago) I was put on the seizure medication Keppra. So now I don't take the Avert because I am afraid of mixing the two meds. I talked to the people at pharmacy.ca about mixing the two meds and they don't know of any studies that have been done to know if it is ok to take the two drugs together. So it's back to sweating :x