Feeling better after MRI

[JES]

Following the latest discussion around structural findings in ME/CFS, I decided to have a brain and cervical MRI. After having the brain MRI, I noticed in the evening I felt somehow different. The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed, with lots of energy and started completing tasks I normally struggle to finish. This energy subsided after a couple of hours and my symptoms returned back to "normal" state.

Interestingly, after having the cervical MRI on another earlier occasion, I cannot recall feeling much different.

Maybe this is a sign that electric/magnetic stimulation could work for my symptoms. Just a shame it's a bit too expensive to get inside an MRI machine every day to get 12 hours of benefit.

 

[Wishful]

It might not have been the magnetic field. Something else in the process of travelling to the hospital for the MRI might have done it.

A bit hard to repeat the process and arrange fake MRIs for a proper double-blind experiment.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@JES Was your neck in a different position than usual for the MRI?

 

[JES]

@Wishful Actually I found a private company doing MRI here and the facility was almost next door, they didn't even require a doctor's prescription. But thinking about it, I should repeat the experiment to see if the effect is at least reproducible. Just need an excuse for why I like their machine so much I want to redo the same test .

@Gingergrrl Hm, when I think about it, my head was put into a slightly different place when doing the brain scan, it rested against some different structure, so it might have been that the neck position was consequently different. But, the improvements I felt came with quite a bit delay, inside the MRI machine I noticed no improvement or change of symptoms.

 

[Wolfcub]

I find this quite interesting @JES Over a year ago I remember a thought passed through my mind re: magnetic stimulation, as a possible experiment to try.
Sadly the best I could do was approx. 50 neodymium earth magnets (1cm)pushed into a headband. I tried to arrange them in polar order so as to get the pole attraction going straight through my brain !
I thought -how much more nuts can I get?

It was extremely difficult to get the magnets aligned. Took me hours. I wore it, but it made no difference.
I kind of shelved the thought, but it has surfaced from time to time as a possible interesting idea.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@Gingergrrl Hm, when I think about it, my head was put into a slightly different place when doing the brain scan, it rested against some different structure, so it might have been that the neck position was consequently different. But, the improvements I felt came with quite a bit delay, inside the MRI machine I noticed no improvement or change of symptoms.

It's a long shot but I had wondered if maybe the neck position for the MRI provided some kind of (temporary) traction? Whatever it was due to, it is very interesting!

 

[Wishful]

But thinking about it, I should repeat the experiment to see if the effect is at least reproducible. Just need an excuse for why I like their machine so much I want to redo the same test .

You could explain the situation to them. Maybe they occasionally need to run the machine for tests, and could allow you to lay in it then to see if the magnetic field did have a reproducible health effect. Doesn't hurt to ask them.

 

[Avena]

@JES how does your ME-symptoms react to fever? How many minutes did you spend in the MRI the two times?

I have consequently felt better after MRI, the longer the better. My body hate magnets, though, that can’t be the answer for me. I once did several areas in one session, and the nurse commented that I had just experienced the maximum time allowed in an MRI for one day. I asked why there was a maximum time. Answer: the core body temperature rise too much after X minutes.

 

[JES]

@Avena Unfortunately I rarely catch colds anymore (I reckon due to a state of chronic immune activation). But the last time I had a cold with fever in 2016, more or less all my ME/CFS symptoms resolved within 24 hours of the first signs of infection. However, in 2014 I caught some kind of stomach bug and didn't experience a fever, but still improved, which made me question if the fever itself is the reason behind the improvement.

The MRI was something between 20-30 minutes in total. Anyway, this is all very curious. I'm aware they use hyperthermia treatment for some Lyme disease cases in Germany.

 

[raghav]

You may want to try Transcranial Magnetic stimulation.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression. TMS is typically used when other depression treatments haven't been effective