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I have had 3 MRI's in the last year (2010). I had neck surgery in January and since the surgery have had lower back pain. An MRI in April was ordered and I found out I have Spnal Stenosis. I was told to do "core strength" exercises and until the pain goes down my leg, to not come in to see him (the neurosurgeon). Well, 7 months later, I called for an appointment because I had an "episode" where I was having a hard time walking: muscle spasms in my lower back down my buttocks. He ordered another MRI. In the 3 that I had, I felt pain in each. I felt the magnetic field grabbing at my nerve endings that were bothering me causing my lower back muscles to "spasm". The neck MRI's prior to surgery and the April MrI for lower back..all the same. It felt like my "injured" area was alive! It was not a good feeling. Very uncomfortable and eventually causing anxiety. However, I toughed it out for the 20 minutes. I HATE THE MRI MACHINE!

Hello! I just had my first MRI, and I too have a very unnerving experience. I was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, and they were checking my chest, and during the long 3 minute sequence while you breathe normally, I felt something strange and building up in my body. Then my hands cramped up really intensely. The longer I was in the machine, the more my hands cramped up into tight claws. I had to push the panic button, and my boyfriend massaged out my rock hard hands. I was not claustrophobic at all, and had my eyes closed.

It was so so weird that my hands felt all tingly and stopped working. I couldn't move them very well for about 15 minutes after the whole thing was done. The tech was very nice and understanding, and helped work out the cramp in my hand, but he said he only saw this happen in people with MS. He said to make sure I told my doctor about what happened, but I cannot seem to find any information on people's hands cramping up. It wasn't that painful, but it was very unnerving and took a lot of meditation not to freak out about it while in the tunnel. Has anyone else felt this way?

Hi, I am so glad I read your post...I thought I was the only one going through this. I had my gallbladder removed about 7 months ago and was feeling awesome until I had an MRI of my lumbar spine done about 5 days ago. I began to have the same pains I was having before in my right side. The same pains that led me to have my gallbladder removed. I am not having the electricity like you explained. I just wanted to ask you...did your pain go away...did you go back to normal and if so how long did it take? Any info would really help. Thanks you so much!

I just had an MRI today...I thought my claustrophobia would get me...but it wasn't that! I had all sort of weird sensations and pulsations! (which I wasn't warned about). I had her stop to tell her I felt pain and heaviness in my heart and she said "my machine isn't causing that"..."we have 10 more minutes"....She said it must be my fear! (because I said I was claustrophobic)....okay, well I did feel the tingling in my limbs and weird pulsations, but the heaviness in my heart I tried to mindfully make disappear...but, no...it was there! I felt angry and insulted by her! She said there is not suposed to be any sensations...."it is just frequencies -not my machine" I think her dismissal was insensitive and alarming....

I remember reading that someone's pain continued (don't know for how long). My pain (uncomfortableness) only lasted as long as the MRI (or at least the pain that concerned me enough to write in). It never concerned me enough to prompt me to ask them to turn off the machine.

However, I have just been disgnosed with Epstein-Barr Virus (tested after having a couple issues with shingles, strep throat, pneumonia, swollen lymph nodes, and just feeling tired). My EBVtest showed past infections, current infection and recent infection. I mention this because someone posted that they had MS (I think?).

I wonder if the hardest part of this thread "feeling pain during MRI" is that someone dismissed us for feeling the way we did. I always tell my husband - I am like the dog that can smell the piece of steak a mile away... just because you can't smell it until it's just under your nose doesn't mean the steak is not there. I have learned that some of us are hypersensitive and we feel things waaaayyyy before others do. Don't look for validation - just give 'em the facts. I saved my son's life because I made the doctors take a double look. Why? because I have a mother's intuition and I pay attention. I don't care that they were validating me or not. Pay attention and use your voice even when they don't understand it.

Hi, I understand your concern because I had a similar experience on two different occasions. When undergoing MRI for my neck, I felt abnormal heart palpitations and was rushed to the ER during one of the test. I manged to go through the second one with discomfort in my chest. Yes. it's true that you are not suppose to experience pain, but I did.

had an mri 1 week ago and had a very similar thing happen.. i realize u posted this 4 years ago and was wondering if you ever figured it out. that mri hurt so bad!

I must say that yes some folks must be sensitive to mris. I know that the 3 that I've have had has caused my legs to hurt so much that I've been tempted to climb out and leave. My arms hurt also but not to the level of my legs. I've been fortunate enough not to have ovarian pain though. I may be naive but could it be something in our blood that is reacting to the magnetic pull of the machine? All I know is that I will have to be on deaths door before I agree to another mri scan! I too HATE MRI's!

I had a MRI on my brain about two weeks ago and it was excruciatingly painful. It was some of the worst pain I have ever felt in my life! With every pound!pound!pound! I felt like I was being pummeled or kicked in the head. I also had a kind of pulling or swishing sort of sensation that felt as if it was occurring inside my brain.

After the MRI I felt as if I had been beaten up and injured. I could not think clearly and my head HURT for hours into the evening. Interestingly, the tech who administered the test said that people with my condition (neuralgia & headaches) can be affected in this manner but the neurologist had not heard of anyone being adversely affected by the test.

What upsets me about this episode is the belief that MRIs are a non-invasive and painless procedure. The test might be pain free for the majority of patients but I am one clearly among others who suffered real physical pain while undergoing an MRI.

I think it is important to let doctors and hospitals know that MRIs can adversely affect and be very painful for certain individuals. I am unsure why some people feel such terrible pain, but I do think medical researchers should take this feedback seriously and not continue to hold to the belief that MRIs are non-invasive and therefor pain free.

I also had an MRI on my right shoulder done this past week. I am allergic to contrast so it was not administered. Halfway thru the MRI I felt a stab in the heart (as if someone took an icepick and stabbed me with it) that was so strong it took my breathe away and my eyes flew open! I immediately closed my eyes and tried to do shallow breathing. The pain didn't happen again during the MRI but I did have an uncomfortable pressure in the area. During the rest of the day and the next, I had about a dozen or so of these stabbing pains. Thankfully today I have not had one! But...it wears on you thinking at anytime it will happen again. I have never had an anxiety attack or nervous condition so it is not related to that.
I did not tell the tech because I am sure he would of said it was my imagination...which it was NOT! And I also felt a kind of weird sensation in the shoulder during the test. There has to be something to this. Too many people have had uncomfortable tests. I am now concerned there maybe something wrong with my heart. But how do you tell a Dr. this happened when they all insist reactions to an MRI do NOT exist?
Has anyone else ever experienced this stabbing pain in the heart during an MRI?

Since, as I understand it, an MRI is Magnetic. You might have something metal in your abdominal area OR you have high iron and the magnetic pull was effecting the area.

I had an MRI of all 3 sections of my spine with and without contrast yesterday and it was the longest 2.5 hours of my life. I've had many MRI's, some were uncomfortable and some hurt, but yesterday my insides felt as if they were being microwaved. My insides were jumping around the whole time and when they were doing my neck area, my neck, shoulders and right arm got so hot and hurt so bad I had to push the button and rest a minute only to go back into the machine and have the pain and burning again. I have a C4-5 neck fusion but other MRI's have not caused the pain I felt yesterday. I, too, could feel exactly where the scan was going on and could see the magnetics at times. I have fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and spinal stenosis/degeneration. I was in tears during the scans but the pain would subside after just a moment when it wasn't scanning. I was dizzy and could hardly walk afterwards. Of coarse, they acted like I was crazy also...so glad to know I'm not alone. I will NEVER go into one of those machines, conscience anyway, again!

I cannot believe that in all this time of this thread, the traffic using this site, the numbers of searches done on ANY search engine, that we are so few in number. Seems about 1 or 2 a year have added on! That in itself tells me it would be interesting to break out any commonality here and I DO notice some! While it took all day to find this thread, I must add that in talking to a friend 20 years my senior that evening, I learned SHE had the same experience (same medical issues too). Now, I had an MRI of the neck and head years ago and remember NOTHING out of the ordinary. I am not clausterphobic - shoot this was not much different than some tanning beds. This test used no contast, either. I was afriad lying flat on the table would not permit me to finish the test since this was a real hot button for pain (one reason for the test). But the tech gave me a pillow under my knees to rest my legs on. Check, check, and check -anything that might be an issue was now a non-issue. Just lay back for 45 or so boring minutes and be done with it. WRONG! The MRI, which was shooting primarily the T1 (emphasis on Lumbar) through S1 and legs soft tissues, was so painful, my reaction surprised ME. It also caused the tech to rerun the sequence because the pain was causing me to flinch. Great - just what I wanted! The pain has been described pretty accurately in this thread (i.e. ovaries - except I had a hysterectomy 5 years before, tingling, electric). My experience began immediately as the machine first fired up. I felt like a human EMF detector. Hair stood on end and was like an electric energy surrounding me. As the machine revved up, I also began to get dizzy - then VERY dizzy - and that did NOT subside. "This is interesting," I thought, but had no idea of what lay ahead. As the actual imaging began, I felt every slice/every shot that thing was taking. It felt like some alien thing was inside my body running around shooting from the inside out! I have no metal in me, but I could feel tugging and pulling and knew exactly what part of the body was being imaged with each adjustment. It also felt like the hottest tanning bed I had ever been in - I thought at least I deserved a tan out of all that! The 'mircrowave' was hottest on my upper body, but this was not the 'hot zone' the slices were being imaged. But the worst (and suspect that caused me to flinch) was while it worked on the lower lumbar and legs. This feeling has been described already and even my friend used the exact same words: "it felt like that thing was ripping my body inside out." The tech was already aware I had told her "it HURT" because she slid me half-way out to tell me 2 of 3 sequences were too burred from movement to use and she had to do a do-over. She reacted to my statement as though I was one of the common clausterphobic head cases - totally disinterested. Back inside, I lay still, held my breath to deal with the pain and near-paranoia that I had some heretofore unknown of metal throught my body! I am border-line anemic, but it felt like I was a serious iron overload, such were those sensations. And all this PULLING and TUGGING -- what was THAT all about? Once over and I was slid out, I had to have assistance from Imaging to outside, I was so lightheaded. I apologized and conveyed my expereince to the tech, whose overall reaction was "huh..". I told my internal medicine doctor who ordered the tests and it seems for him, THIS was a first (but he is used to my having side effects from meds that affect fewer than 10% of patients and must have assumed this to be the same category: I was strange)! My back and legs - the subject of the MRI - felt like it had been through a thrashing machine. When I got home I took my meds for my Fibromyalgia AND this year-old 'acute' back and leg issue, plus a muscle relaxer I rarely take and went to bed. Finally I see I am NOT alone! But again-I DO see common medical components between these entries....

had the same experience w my mri today... have no "ferrous" metal in my body and the "moving around" of my intestines only happened w certain "tones" from the mri... when i asked the tech person she had a weird look and when i continued w my questions she gave me what i perceived as text book responses to complaints that were heard from patients...

had my intestines move around but only w certain tones... i have no ferrous metals in my body and when a mentioned what had happened the tech responded with what i perceived as text book responses to concerned patients and w a few weird looks to disscourage any further questions... neway metal in body seems to be the only answer i recieved...