MRI – Head

Magnetic resonance imaging uses strong magnetic fields and radiofrequency waves to provide detailed and clear images of internal tissues and organs. As a result, the medical procedure has proven essential for the early diagnosis and treatment of conditions like stroke, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, developmental abnormalities, hemorrhage, issues with previous head injuries, and cysts. Additionally, head MRI does not use radiation, is painless and non-invasive, making it a perfect alternative to x-rays and CT scans. Los Angeles Diagnostics is a premier choice for all your imaging solutions. Our dedicated and compassionate specialists can work aggressively to offer you personalized services to ensure you have a positive experience and get the best treatment plan for your health condition.

Understanding Head Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Head MRI is a painless and non-invasive test that gives detailed images of the brainstem and brain. The MRI machine produces the images using radio waves and magnetic fields.

Your MRI scan is different from x-rays or CT scan in that it does not use radiation to create images. The scan combines images to create a 3D image of the internal structures, making it more effective than other scans at detecting abnormalities in small brain structures like brain stem and pituitary glands. From time to time, a dye or contrast agent could be administered via an intravenous line to visualize abnormalities and different structures better. 

Head MRI can be used to diagnose the following conditions:

• Stroke
• Brain tumor
• Chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis
• Hydrocephalus
• Developmental anomalies
• Hemorrhage in specific trauma patients
• The inner ear and eye disorders
• Pituitary gland
• Vascular challenges like an aneurysm, arterial occlusion, and venous thrombosis
• Swelling
• Cysts
• Hormonal disorders like Cushing’s syndrome and acromegaly
• Issues due to previous head injuries

Your physician might also order a head magnetic resonance imaging to investigate signs and symptoms like blurry vision, chronic headache, changes in behavior and thinking, seizures, dizziness, and weakness.

How an MRI Scanner Looks Like

An MRI magnetic resonance imaging is a massive tube with openings at all ends. Magnetic fields surround the table that you slide in and out of the tube and the tube.

Older scanners have a ceiling adjacent to the patient’s face and head, increasing the possibility of feeling claustrophobic during your scan. Fortunately, the new scanner’s tunnels are huge, and while you might experience claustrophobia, you will have more space than you’d have before.

All sides on an open MRI are open. An open MRI is ideal for obese or claustrophobic patients.

How MRI Works

Generally, the human body is mostly water. Water molecules contain hydrogen protons that align in magnetic fields.

Moreover, the scanner produces a radiofrequency current which creates a varying magnetic field. The hydrogen protons absorb the energy from the magnetic field and flip the spins. When the field is turned off, the hydrogen nuclei gradually return to their standard spin (the process is known as procession). The procession produces radio signals that the scanner’s receivers measure, creating a three-dimensional image that your physician can examine from different angles.

Protons in various body tissues return to their regular spin at different rates, allowing the MRI equipment to distinguish among various forms of tissues. Your radiologist can also adjust the scanner’s settings to produce contrast between various body tissues.

Sometimes the radiologist can use dyes or injectable contrast to change the local magnetic field in the examined body tissue. Abnormal and normal tissues respond differently to the alternation, giving the radiologist differing signals and images.

How Head MRI is Performed

When a primary doctor orders a head MRI, what most patients understand is that they will learn about their health and health conditions. However, they do not know what to anticipate during this diagnostic examination.

When you arrive for your scan, you should check with the receptionist to confirm your health and personal information. A medical practitioner will give you a safety checklist. It would also be best if you told your technician of any implantable metal or device in your body such as pacemakers, insulin pumps, aneurysm clips, cochlear implants, or injuries to the eyes related to shavings or metal slivers.

Then a technologist will escort you to the changing room, where you’ll change into a gown. You don’t have to change into the gown if you’ve loose-fitting clothing. You should also remove:

• Outer clothing like shoes
• Glasses
• Bras among other undergarments with metal
• Jewelry like bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and watch
• Hair accessories with metal like hairpins and barrettes
• Wallets and purses
• Cellphone

You will put your personal items in a secure locker.

Before going to the examination room, your radiologist will evaluate your safety checklist and medical history, ensuring you do not have anything metallic.

Some MRI examinations entail patients getting into the scanner feet first while others enter head first. It is also essential that you ensure your head is in the middle of the scanner. It helps you get the best images of the head.

The radiologist will ask you to lie back on the bench. If you have challenges lying on it, the medic can provide you with a blanket or pillow. Then an imaging device known as a coil is placed around your head. It is a framework that supports your head, body, or joint during the scan and assists the technician in acquiring high-quality images. Sometimes, you might require a contrast material to diagnose or detect potential abnormalities further. The technician will inject an intravenous line in the arm to administer the contrast.

Next, the skilled technologist will provide you with an emergency call bell and a pair of headphones. The items will help you to hear and communicate with the technologist during your examination. The medical expert will also answer your questions, address your concerns, and explain that the scan consists of tiny scans that require you to remain still and relaxed. Any seasoned radiologist will tell you that even the most nervous patients are calm when they understand what to anticipate.

Some of the questions you can ask your MRI technologist include the following:

• What information will the diagnostic test provides
• How might your MRI outcome change your treatment options?
• Is there any reason why you should not have the MRI test?
• Will your examination involve a contrast agent?
• How long will your test last?
• Where is the call button?
• Can you choose your favorite music during the scan?

Your technologist will remain in the examination room until you are comfortable and well-positioned.

Once you’re ready for the examination, the physician will go to an adjacent room with a huge window that looks into your examination room. They will confirm that you can hear them and coach and update you throughout your medical procedure. As the images are being captured, your radiologist will ask you to hold your breath for a couple of seconds. You will not feel anything during the scan since you cannot feel radio and magnet frequencies.

The duration between scans varies as the expert reviews your images and prepares for your following scan. It’s normal, and you should not raise the alarm.

During your scan, you’ll hear buzzing or knocking sounds from the equipment. It is normal, and the noises will last, provided the images are being taken. The earplugs or headphones aid dampen the noise.

After the examination is complete, your radiologist will return to the examination room and assist you in getting out of the equipment. You can now change into your clothing and go home. 

Notify your doctor if you notice any pain, swelling, or redness at the IV site after your medical procedure. It could be a sign of a reaction or infection.

If you took a sedative for your examination, you might be required to rest until it wears off your body. Moreover, you will require a loved one to take you home. Otherwise, you don’t require any special recovery attention following your scan. You could resume your diet and everyday activities unless the physician advises you otherwise.

Following Up Following Your Head MRI

If the technician projected your images onto film, it could take time for the film to develop. Additionally, it will take time for the physician to analyze and interpret your images. Most modern equipment displays images on a PC that allows the medic to interpret them fast.

Preliminary results from a head MRI might be available within a couple of days, while comprehensive results could take longer.

Then your physician will call you in for an appointment to discuss the results and plan the most effective treatment option. If the results are normal, your physician might order more tests to diagnose the cause of the symptoms.

A follow-up examination might also be required because potential abnormalities require further evaluation with more views or a special imaging technique. Additionally, your doctor might conduct more tests to see any changes in your irregularity over time.

What are the Benefits of Head MRI?

Here are the various benefits of head MRI:

• It is a non-invasive imaging technique that doesn’t involve radiation exposure.
• The procedure can help your doctor analyze your brain structures and offer practical information in specific cases.
• Magnetic resonance imaging can detect stroke at early stages by mapping the motion of water molecules in your tissues.
• A variant known as MR angiography offers comprehensive images of blood vessels in your brain.
• MRI can detect abnormalities that could be obscured by bone with other diagnostic tests
• Head MRI images are more detailed and clearer than CT scans, x-rays, and other imaging tests. It makes MRI an essential tool in the early evaluation and diagnosis of most health conditions like tumors.
• Gadolinium contrast used in MRI examination is less likely to result in allergic reactions than iodine-based contrast material used in CT scans and x-rays.

Risks of Head MRI

Magnetic resonance imaging images are produced without ionizing radiation so that patients aren’t exposed to hazardous effects of radiation. However, while there aren’t known hazards from the exposure, the MRI environment involves strong magnetic fields that change with time alongside radiofrequency energy that have the following safety issues:

• The magnetic fields will attract all magnetic substances like floor buffers, oxygen tanks, cell phones, and keys and might damage the MRI equipment or injure the medical practitioner or you, the patient, should these substances become projectiles. Therefore, a careful screening of objects and persons entering the examination room is vital.
• Magnetic fields which change over time produce loud knocking sounds that might affect hearing if sufficient ear protection isn’t used. Additionally, they might lead to nerve stimulation or peripheral muscle that might feel like twitching sensations.
• The radiofrequency energy used during your test might result in body heating. The longer the MRI exam, the higher the possibility of heating.
• Moreover, gadolinium-based contrast agents have side effects like allergic reactions to this contrast agent.

Sometimes patients with large body frames find the scanner’s inside uncomfortable and might experience claustrophobia. While an open MRI scanner is an option, not all systems could perform the head magnetic resonance imaging examination. Therefore, you should talk more about your options with the technologist. The doctor might prescribe medications to make your experience easier.

To obtain high-quality images, you should relax throughout the procedure. Patients who cannot lay still like small children and infants should be anesthetized or sedated. Anesthesia and sedation might have risks like low blood pressure and challenges in breathing.

Patients with Accessory, External, and Implants Devices

MRI scan exposure presents safety risks to persons with eternal devices, accessory medical devices, and implants. An external device is any device that might touch you, such as leg braces, external insulin pumps, or wound dressings. Accessories are non-implanted medical devices that doctors can use to support or monitor the patient, including a patient monitor and ventilator. On the other hand, implanted devices include pacemakers, cochlear implants, stents, and artificial joints.

The magnetic fields will cause the following risks:

• Undesired movement of your medical device
• Heating of your implanted medical device and your surrounding tissues could result in burns
• Malfunction of electrically active medical devices
• Poor quality of your MRI images, making the test uninformative or might result in a wrong clinical diagnosis, possibly leading to unsuitable medical treatment options.

Consequently, you should not undergo the diagnostic test unless your implanted medical device is MR conditional or MR safe. An MR safe device does not have metal, conduct electricity, or pose any hazard in the MR environment since it is nonmagnetic. You might use an MR conditional device safely only with an MR environment that compliments conditions of its safe use.

MRI Risks During Pregnancy

There are no proven risks to unborn children or expectant mothers from head magnetic resonance imaging examinations. Over many decades, millions of women have had the tests, and no hazardous effects on their babies have been discovered.

As a result, you should not refuse a head MRI test essential for diagnosing your potentially urgent or severe health condition due to fear. The most fundamental factor in having a healthy child is ensuring a healthy parent. Your baby depends on you to stay healthy and carry your pregnancy to term.

Additionally, since the procedure only uses radio waves and magnetic fields to capture images, there aren’t concerns about undergoing the diagnostic test while breastfeeding. You can resume nursing your baby as soon as the test is done.

How Much Does a Head MRI Cost?

If your primary doctor has ordered a head MRI, you probably wonder how much the scan will cost. While the procedure’s cost can range from several hundred to a couple of thousands, there is no definite answer since the cost varies with the location, type of the scan, and approach used (with contrast agent or not).

Generally, MRI tests are expensive. An MRI equipment costs over a million dollars alongside costs like:

• Upgrading it regularly
• Cost of the ink
• Administrative cost
• Cost of the technologist performing, reading, and interpreting the images.

Another factor that might influence the price will be the insurance deductible. Typically, insurance deductibles for a head MRI will be more than you would pay to schedule one outright. It would be wise to conduct research and inquire about your deductible before deciding whether to book a self-pay scan or use your insurance provider.

Finding More Pocket-Friendly Prices for Head MRIs

Medical costs add up quickly, especially for patients without insurance or with high deductible health plans. However, that does not mean that you cannot find a process that suits your budget.

As previously mentioned, the cost of your head imaging test can vary significantly even within the same region. Therefore, you should research for more pocket-friendly prices before getting your scan.

Generally, hospitals are some of the most high-end places to have the scans, while imaging centers offer services at reasonable costs.

Most diagnostic centers are more willing to work with persons without coverage. They might offer discounts for patients paying in cash. They can also develop a flexible payment plan, so you don’t have to foot your entire hospital bill at once. You could put the bill on a low-interest, balance transfer credit card.

Contact a Seasoned Imaging Center Near Me

The advancement of head MRI scans has improved the medical imaging field. A primary doctor can recommend a magnetic resonance test for the early detection of health conditions. It can also provide more details about a health problem identified on a CT scan or x-ray. For many years Los Angeles Diagnostics has offered the most advanced imaging options at reasonable costs. Since we recognize that early diagnosis offers the best opportunity for cure, we can do everything within our power to ensure your high-quality care and comfort. To learn more about the scan and book your initial consultation, contact us today at 323-486-7502.