Is an MRI scary? Slip disk?

[Anonymous]

Weird question I know. I'm going in next week to have an MRI of my spin. My doctors believe that I have a slip disk. I woke up two weeks ago on Thursday and everything was fine. I was moving around doing everything normal and than I got a sharp pain down my back. Now recently, my whole entire back, thigh, butt, hips, and my toes have been in a lot of pain. I'm on medication for a muscle relaxer and than just for the pain but nothing is helping. I wasn't in school for the whole week, last week. And yesterday and today I had to go home because the pain is way too intense to just sit sometimes. My doctor wrote me a note saying I could go home early anytime if I was uncomfortable to be there.

So my question is both is an MRI scary? Will I feel anything? And if I do have a slip disk, do you know what they will do to help?

[JohnGPL]

MRIs really aren't scary at all unless you're claustrophobic. Even then, they might have an open MRI, which resolves that issue. You'll likely not feel anything at all since an MRI is basically just a giant magnet.

As far as possible treatment, most of the time it's just lots of bed rest, reduced physical activity, and pain killers. If you have a herniated disk there's the possibility they would have to do surgery to repair it. Surgery always carries some risk, but this sort of procedure isn't exceptionally dangerous and is performed all the time without complication.

[Asker]

I've been on bed rest for two weeks basically and nothing has changed.

[JohnGPL]

Well, I'm not a doctor so I don't know how long it should take for a spinal injury like that to feel better, but like I said, even if you need surgery it's not something to get real worked up about. The stress of worrying over something you can't really control isn't going to help you heal any faster.

[sinful1620]

If you're claustrophobic, yes. Tell the doctors if this is the case and they can give you some drugs beforehand.

Otherwise, basically you just lie still for 10-30 minutes while the machine makes weird whooping noises. It's not scary, it's just awkward.

[SillyG0000se]

Not really, its just reeeeeeeeeeeeaally loud