Research 1st
Severe ME, POTS & MCAS.
- Messages
- 768
Hello everyone.
Probably like other posters here in the UK, I'm trying to find a private SPECT/PET or any other imaging method to try and test for the following to correlate with ME CFS or Lyme research:
Brain flood flow.
Brain stem blood flow.
Ventricular Lactate/Brain glucose metabolism.
Inflammation of the type ME CFS research is finding in Japan.
The scanning machines exist, where the money exists, so there are the latest SPECT/CT/ gamma cameras and PET advertised in central London as I have discovered. So it's not an impossible challenge.
However, I can't find anywhere that offers this relating to the brain specifically. Perhaps the radiologists aren't familiar with SPECT/PET brain scans and are more familiar with scans for cardiac perfusion and cancer?
For sure, SPECT is an outdated technology and seems to be resigned to research, but for our specific illness, modern 3D SPECT seems to be a useful alternative method of imaging to PET FDG-PET? There are many studies on abnormal brain SPECT in CFS, you can see them here below, heralding back to Dr Costa's revelations back in the early 1990's - when many of us got sick as children/young adults.
Link to research findings of brain abnormalities in ME CFS, using mainly SPECT scans:
http://www.meresearch.org.uk/information/publications/structural-and-functional-neuroimaging/
So if any of you guys in the UK have found somewhere in London and had one done on your brain, even if the result is normal, please do reply.
Thank you so much.
Probably like other posters here in the UK, I'm trying to find a private SPECT/PET or any other imaging method to try and test for the following to correlate with ME CFS or Lyme research:
Brain flood flow.
Brain stem blood flow.
Ventricular Lactate/Brain glucose metabolism.
Inflammation of the type ME CFS research is finding in Japan.
The scanning machines exist, where the money exists, so there are the latest SPECT/CT/ gamma cameras and PET advertised in central London as I have discovered. So it's not an impossible challenge.
However, I can't find anywhere that offers this relating to the brain specifically. Perhaps the radiologists aren't familiar with SPECT/PET brain scans and are more familiar with scans for cardiac perfusion and cancer?
For sure, SPECT is an outdated technology and seems to be resigned to research, but for our specific illness, modern 3D SPECT seems to be a useful alternative method of imaging to PET FDG-PET? There are many studies on abnormal brain SPECT in CFS, you can see them here below, heralding back to Dr Costa's revelations back in the early 1990's - when many of us got sick as children/young adults.
Link to research findings of brain abnormalities in ME CFS, using mainly SPECT scans:
http://www.meresearch.org.uk/information/publications/structural-and-functional-neuroimaging/
So if any of you guys in the UK have found somewhere in London and had one done on your brain, even if the result is normal, please do reply.
Thank you so much.