Continuing with my diagnosis, last Monday I had to go back
to the hospital for a small bowel MRI.
MRI is short for “Magnetic Resonance Imaging”.
It utilises strong magnetic fields and radio waves to generate images of the
body. It has the benefit over traditional x-rays and CT scans that it doesn’t
expose you to radiation. There are advantages and disadvantages of each
technique. I personally am not worried about getting x-rays. I’d much rather
have a little radiation than continue to suffer, though some people are
concerned about the effects of radiation, so MRI is a valid alternative. Pretty
sure I’m not going to get superpowers no matter how many x-rays I have, boo.
The purpose of MRI was to investigate my
small bowel for signs of inflammatory bowel disease – common types of IBD being
Crohn’s and Ulcerative Collitis. My current diagnosis is ‘active IBD’. My
abdomen is often quite swollen, noticeably bigger at some points and tender to
touch pretty. I more often than not have pain in my abdomen after eating manifesting
as horrible gut wrenching cramps that leave me with little more to do than curl
up in a position that’s remotely comfy and feel sorry for myself while waiting
for them to pass. It can vary in its onset. It can occur 5 minutes after eating
or it can appear half an hour after eating. This also varies with what and how
much I eat. Sometimes I’m okay, sometimes I think those chips will be the end
of me. With this often comes horrible diarrhoea (It’s hard treading fine line between
being informative and being gross, sometimes you just have to be honest).
From a previous colonoscopy – which I
thankfully had prior to starting writing the blog, as I’m pretty sure you
wouldn’t want a play by play of that! – it showed my large bowel to be normal,
with no obvious ulcers or areas of concern. Biopsies were taken but were
inconclusive. So the next step was to see if my small bowel was inflamed which unfortunately
can’t be reached by the camera.
I want to throw in a little aside here, just
while I mentioned the colonoscopy. At work, one of the projects I’m helping
support is called Sonopill, which is an ultrasound pill that you can swallow,
which will pass through the gastrointestinal tract, generating an image of your
insides with ultrasound. The image is recorded and you simply poop out the
pill, simple! Unfortunately it’s still about 5 years too early for it to be
used and thus I had the camera. For those, who like me, found the colonoscopy
incredibly uncomfortable verging on bloody painful, there will hopefully be
another option. Also, for those who are having colonscopies, you may be like me
and have to take Moviprep, a laxative solution to clean out your bowels. If you’re
like me, then 4 hours later, you’re getting pretty worried that it’s not
working despite drinking the litre. You google it and the internet tells you ‘oh
it’s great, it worked in 20 minutes’ or ‘after 5 minutes it was like a
waterfall’. Please please do not worry, it will work! I can assure you that.
You might just have a terrible 4 hour transit time like I did, it will work,
just have some patience.
Thankfully for this bowel scan, I didn’t
need to take anymore Moviprep, it tasted rank. This time, I had to have a
barium meal. Barium shows up well on medical imaging and is used to outline, in
my case, the bowel, to give a clearer image. One thing I can say, is that the Barium
meal is much better than the Moviprep.
 |
| Barium Meal |
I can’t offer you any tips for drinking this
I’m afraid. My nurse kindly brought a bottle of diluting orange. Pour enough in
and it just tastes like strong orange juice which is how I drink it anyway. If
you drink it too fast, you start to get the Barium taste, which is sort of an
odd sweet flavour (or at least how I found it) But not a nice sweet flavour. If
you imagine something sickly sweet, then imagine that starting to go off, that’s
what it was like. It wasn’t revolting (and much easier going down than Moviprep
which is just so salty) but if you can ask a nurse for orange juice, it’ll help
a lot. I had to drink this over 45 minutes, while enjoying some BBC breakfast
shows I usually nerve get to see. I’ll admit I did struggle and began to feel incredibly bloated nearing the end of the first jug. I wasn’t quite
sipping, I was steadily drinking. Too much and I started to feel like I’d bring
it back up, so had to slow myself down so not to lose it. I had to constantly will myself to avoid going to the toilet.
 |
| Cheers! |
By about 9.15am I had drank a litre, and was
told I needed another 2 glasses from the second jug, which I did manage but it was tough with the bloating feeling. I went
through for the scan and lay on the table while I was fastened in. The
radiographer kindly put a foam pillow under my legs to help relieve some pain.
If you suffer from a bad back like me, there’s no harm in asking for it. I didn’t
have one for the MRI I had last October and I was in agony when it was done. 40
minutes of lying flat was excruciating and I was close to buzzing someone
through to stop it. The pillow really helped to relieve the pressure a little.
As I always do when I had an MRI, I chose Musicals as my music of choice. Two
reasons. A) I love musicals. B) I know how long most of the songs from musicals
last so can time how long I have been in the MRI and more importantly how long
I have to go. They are pretty much guaranteed to play you ‘Phantom of the Opera’
and ‘Cats’. Not that it matters much, it’s still so loud you can barely hear
it.
Unfortunately after a pre-scan, most of the fluid
was still in my stomach and I was taken out for 15 minutes while the fluid
emptied into my small bowel. After this though, the scan went fine. There was
enough Barium in my small bowel and I had about half an hours’ worth of
scanning. Much of this involved holding my breath for extended periods of time
so the movement of my breathing didn’t distort the image. My scan went fine and
I was discharged, my results will go to my rheumatologist, who I’m not seeing
for another little while. The drug we’ve chosen to go on has the added benefit
of settling IBD, so the outcome of the scan isn’t going to affect the treatment
decision anyway. Hopefully it comes back narrowing down the type of
inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s or Ulcerative Collitis) so I can try and
make some lifestyle and diet changes to help it along but hopefully my
treatment will begin to settle that down too. And I won’t have to give up
chips!
The downside of a Barium meal is the ‘slight’
laxative effect. The instructions and subsequently the nurse warned me not to
stray too far from the loo for the rest of the day. I had agreed to work from
home that day and I would recommend you do. ‘Slight’ laxative effect turned out
being a ‘very effective’ laxative effect that lasted into the next day, so you
have been warned!
MRI is a safe and efficient option for
medical imaging. The staff at the hospital were wonderfully friendly
(particularly for a Monday morning!) and made me feel relaxed and comfortable.
They talked me through the procedure and warned me every time they were taking
an image or moving the table during the scan. Hopefully this is my last MRI for a
while but it was a quick and painless procedure and hopefully if you have to go
for one, this will help to put you at ease a little. Inflammatory Bowel Disease
(IBD) itself is not thought of as auto-immune disease as the immune system is
not being triggered by the body itself but it is immune related. If you suffer
from an autoimmune condition and you experience stomach pain, particularly
after eating and often have loose stools or diarrhoea, there is a chance you
may suffering from IBD. I would like to stress as I try to do in all my posts
that I am not a doctor. I have a degree and a shop in the anatomy field but I
am not a licenced medical doctor. If you think you may relate to anything I
describe, please contact your GP and explain your symptoms. You’re welcome to
chat to me in the comments section below or message me on any of the social
media buttons to the right.
Thanks,
Robyn x
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