Personalized medicine
I went to an optometrist yesterday. Among the various gizmos I was assaulted with was a device that imaged the back of my eye. The doc showed me the images. In addition to my blood vessels, my optic nerves and my macula visible directly, the software also supplies tomography at various position across the field to reveal the thickness of my retina at any position. It was very cool.
I had a similar experience with imaging in the dental surgery office when I had my dental implants a few years back. The x-rays immediately showed up on a large monitor, where I could see the details of jaw bone tissue relative to the implant base. Again, very cool.
Of course, imaging has been a feature of colonoscopies for many years, but I missed it because I elected to be sedated. A physician colleague stayed awake for his and watched it on the monitor. No thanks.
When my dentist switched to a Xray digital sensor, they had to dial down the Xray intensity a fair bit. Apparently, the digital sensors are more sensitive than film. That’s good news, because it means lower Xray exposure. It’s still worth ducking out of the room and wearing a lead bib. The less Xray exposure the better. Still, it’s good news.
P.S. I had my colonoscopy in the part of the hospital labeled gastro-enterology. I think it was more gastro-exitology, but that’s just me.
@Kaleberg,
Yes. Way lower X-ray dosage. And that’s an unalloyed good.
And yes, gastroenterology does colonoscopy, but I totally take your point!
I had to have an MRI done not too long ago. Boy, are they LOUD! Like some guys banging on trash cans are in the machine. And I had to have two of them!
@Fred,
When I had my MRI a few years back, they gave me a set of headphones and a choice of musical genres to listen to. I don’t know if they were noise cancelling headphones, but they blunted the noise considerably.
Joel:
I was counting the holes in the speaker over my face. Thinking of some other place I wanted to be.
As I said, I had two MRIs. For the first I had headphones & music which was only audible between trash-can banging episodes, which were all-too frequest. The 2nd was with some ear plugs, worked a little better, but not much. My deafness, which is not exactly mild, was overpowered.
It is very possible that the headphones/plugs reduced the noise somewhat, but it was still awful.
All said, previous MRI(s), in the narrow-tube type machines, were much worse, if not equally loud, owing to claustrophobia.
@Fred,
To be fair, my single experience with MRI involved imaging the lower half of my body, so my head was outside the machine. That might have helped. Also, as I said, they may have been noise-cancelling headphones–I don’t recall.
Joel:
When the tube is inches above your face, it is like being in a cocoon. I was only able to sedate myself by thinking of other things, counting the holes in the plastic where the speaker was, and just putting myself into another state of mind. Not sure how long it took. Maybe 45 minutes. I can see how it can cause fear. I did not like it.
@Bill,
I was offered the option of being sedated, but declined. If my head had been inside the machine, I might have accepted the sedation.