Pacemaker

MRI

by islandgirl - 2019-03-29 14:17:20

I've had to go to a hospital, not an outpatient center.  Bring your card with you.  They may take a chest xray first.  Have your EP contact the facility if they give you a problem.

MRI

by AgentX86 - 2019-03-29 16:29:54

I haven't needed an MRI since I got my pacemaker but was told by both the PM tech andmy EP to always go to a large hospital if I ever needed an MRI, never an "MRI in a box". Hospital Radiology technicians are trained on pacemakers and will likely have a PM tech around, if needed.

MRI

by islandgirl - 2019-03-29 21:53:59

Yes, I think one of the reasons you have to go to the hospital is because the outpatient facilities don't have a device technician.  They will put you device in 'safe mode', which I believe means they take it out of programming and put it at your minimum rate.  When you're done, they put it back to what it was before.  Takes only a couple of minutes for them to set it before and after.  

Yes, had MRI but it was a struggle

by LondonAndy - 2019-03-30 05:45:42

Islandgirl is right about the process.  I needed an MRI but the hospital where I was being treated refused to do it because there wasn't a pacemaker technician able to be present before and after.  I ended up having a scan at a different London hospital where they had realised this is a problem for a lot of places, and they specifically do one day per month of scans for people with devices.  This was quite a new scheme at the time, and a doctor said that part of the problem is Radiologists are still concerned about the risk of doing harm by putting someone with a pacemaker inside a huge magnet, even though it is quite a while now that "MRI conditioned" pacemakers have been available. 

I had not expected the scan to take some 40 minutes, but I had no adverse feelings at any point.

MRI

by novak263 - 2019-03-31 12:09:44

I tried to get a breast MRI. I was getting one every year for a long time due to previous BC and dense tissue. I was assured when i got the PM it was MRI compatible. "No problem." Well big problem!! No one would do it. And I live near Pittsburgh, where there are a lot of hospitals and state of the art facilites. And then if I found a place, my insurance wouldn't cover it because it was out of network. I spent two months trying to find a place. Finally found one out of network and got a special  exception from my insurance. They then told me the pictures wouldn't come out well anyway becasue of the PM. So all that for nothing!! If you need an MRI for a different body part it might be better. I don't know. But it must be a hell of a hassle,, becasue even with all these hospitals and facilites I live near, no one wanted to touch it wih a fifty foot pole. They don't tell you any of that when they implant it. They should. But anyway, I hope you have better luck than me. 

MRI

by alanr1303 - 2019-04-01 07:16:44

I have been having annual prostate MRI for the past 6 years, my pacemaker was fitted in September last year. At the time of fitting I was told MRI would be no problem, just requiring some programming before and after. My MRI was due in February, but I am having problems apparently because the hospital doing the MRI do not have the equipment for monitoring during the proceedure. Seems it's not as straightforward as I thought it would be.

Update: Had MRI last week, all went well with no problems.

MRI

by SamanthaS - 2019-04-01 14:32:00

Just had one - the hospital EP scheduled the appointment at the hospital that does emergency heart surgery.  The EP device nurse came down and put my MRI compatible Medtronic into MRI mode and then came back and put it where it belonged.  There was a nurse monitoring my heart rate the entire time.  No big deal.