hi all, pet ct left me with a terrible headache and a very sore arm for over 24 hours. Is this normal please ? I was also very itchy after it. Otherwise it was fine and very easy to tolerate. Staff were superb.
Hi , sorry to hear you’ve not felt well after your PET CT, I sometimes have felt a bit wobbly after my CT scans, I put it down to a change in blood sugar levels, for me they advise drinking water afterwards. Headaches can be a sign of stress, or dehydration especially if you have a long journey like me to the hospital and back, and extra glucose going in on the scan. I haven’t had a PET scan but my CT scan involves drinking a special liquid an hour before the scan and an injection during it. I haven’t had an itchy feeling or a sore arm except that not all people are as good at putting the cannula in and so I often have bruising for a week.
Was this the first scan that you’ve had ? I usually get some info sheets every time with my scan and if you have another, they ask if you had any reaction the last time, they can they then give you any extra advise. I hope you headache has now cleared.
I was fine after my PET scan but that was probably the relief that it was over as I was definitely not fine during it!
I have a doctor/hospital phobia and my PET scan was the only scan during which the phobia was triggered. Although the less senior radiographer, who I had done all the necessary preparation with, was fine, the senior radiographer (whom I never saw, he was just a voice) treated me as an inconvenience. He snapped at me for being too slow when I was moving and moving too much once I was lying down. Also, I had been told I could keep my wedding ring on but then, at the last moment, he ordered me take it off when there was nowhere safe to put it. He was not a member of the hospital staff but employed by In Health. The PET scanner was in a trailer in the hospital car park. It was cramped, drafty and cold. There is a perfectly good PET scanner inside the hospital, but at that time all NHS PET scans had been contracted out.
Maybe you are sensitive to one of the substances they injected. It would be unlikely to be the radioactive tracer (which is just glucose) but it could have been one of the other substances.
Hi moira, I am claustrophobic and have had many bad MRI experiences due to a great deal of bowel and gynae surgery and now I have diazepam before a scan and it helps me stay calmer.
However, my petscan experience was excellent, at cobalt centre in Cheltenham and they could not have been more lovely and sweet and compassionate.mit is run by a charity and our health trust buys scans via them thank goodness. I cannot praise them enough as I was a basket case when I got there! Without them I could not have managed it. I even wrote to them after it to say thanks as people like that deserve praise. They were calm, patient, compassionate and made me feel safe. They even ensured someone came in at tregular intervals to tell me how many minutes I had done and how well I was doing. They were superstars !
I did have a rash where the drip went in and was very itchy afterwards but they said this may occur so I was not worried.
it is nice when medical people are so humane as they can someitems treat us rather like science specimens and this upsets me greatly. I was once shouted at to " get back into that scanner now" by a horrible woman running an old style closed ended MRI some years back, I did so, and ended up vomitting in the scanner so ha ha ....she had to clean that up. Serves her right for her lack of empathy.
Nice to chat to another person as phobic as me about all this. I have had over dozen major surgeries to date and now melanoma adds to the menu as they say .
