This week was that time again, another trip to the good old NHNN for a brain-scan. This was a pre-emptive monitoring scan to see if there is anything untoward going on, as I haven't had one since last summer. I've no reason to think there is anything to see but, given the gap, it would be better to be able to intervene (with steroids etc) before overt symptoms appear. I've had enough of these now to know the routine pretty well. 1. Blood-test (beforehand), 2. Safety form, 3. Remove coins, keys, watch, belt, bank-cards, etc, 4. Scan 1, 5. Stick tube in arm for contrast, 6. Scan 2, 7. Wait for report. So I'm at 7 for now and it usually takes a week or two.

 

Interestingly, in the middle of the night after I had the scan, I woke up with a thumping headache and vomited three times over the next couple of hours (I should stress that no alcohol was involved ...). I did a bit of checking on the internet to see if the injected contrast ("Gadolinium") can have these effects. Nausea/vomiting are rarely reported but usually occur within minutes of the injection; reactions like itching, hives and rashes are more common. So I think it was probably coincidence; my doctor thought it sounded like a conventional migraine.

 

PS A new request for help on the forum this week from a CLIPPERS patient in the US. Does anyone out there have a similar experience?

 

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Living With CLIPPERS by Bill Crum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.