This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Forgive me if this came up in some other thread, but does anyone know whether you can get MRIs if you have stents? If seems to me that you couldn't have an MRI done if you have metal things (like stents) in your body.

MRIs are not a problem with stents. We all have had them in our follow up exams. In fact, Lew and I are going for some more of the strong ones on Wednesday when we do them with Dr. Haacke.

That's good news, but kinda surprising since they ask before I get my MRI if I've ever welded or done metalwork.
...Ted

fiddler wrote:That's good news, but kinda surprising since they ask before I get my MRI if I've ever welded or done metalwork.
...Ted

Hahaha. When my first flareup happened, they told me at County (where the poor people without insurance get pretty damned good medical care in my opinion!) that I needed to get admitted and get a room to get into the machine faster instead of weeks later. Considering that my right eye was looking at my left eye, and how bad I felt, I needed no convincing.

My roomie was a guy that had basically moved in, poor guy on motorcycle, unknown truck lost ladder, turned his leg into swiss cheese. God bless him though made a great roomie, knew all the ins and outs. Me, being the "answer every question correctly" guy, did mention that yes indeed, I DID work with metal, and NO, had no idea if had any in head or eyes etc, I mean that happened before but it always came out but you never know. Dude just laughed at me, "oh man you screwed up now you just added on 1 day to your wait", and laughed. I was like, "why?". "Cause now they have to send you for a CT scan of your head, to verify no metal in there before getting MRI lol. Well HE thought it was hilarioius haha.

Anyways no, the stents make no impact on your "MRIability". (they are nickel alloy or stainless, non-magnetic)

Oh yeah hey Arcee, good luck to you and Lew come Wednesday. We anxiously await your report! Give Dr. Haacke a high five from everyone at TIMS.....

Mark

I was thinking about this same issue recently.

I just had an MRI a few days ago and one of the questions was whether I had any stents. I asked the nurse about it and she said that as long as the stents have been in your body for more than 3-6 months, they should have "fused" into the lining of your veins enough not to worry.

My next question is whether stents actually show up on an MRI scan? If my neuro was looking at my MS lesions, would they see the stents clearly?

Fiddler,

Just remember. The questions about the welding and iron work deal with FERROUS metals. The stents are 100% non-ferrous and are not magnetic at all. I had to get x-rayed before my first MRI because of a piece of steel I had to get removed from my eye from grinding on a pressure vessel. They said that if any of it is still left, it would just rip itself out of my eye. But they did the x-ray and even though there's a slight "stain" where that piece was, it was ok. 300 series stainless, nickel, titanium and tungsten (stent materials) have 0% iron in them and are thus non-magnetic and not affected by the MRI anymore than your skin is.

Thanks, Loobie... guess that means I won't be setting off metal detectors in airports, either.