On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:28:11 -0600, Doug
wrote:

On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:58:32 -0500, micky
wrote:

On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:44:29 -0800, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 02/14/2013 10:07 AM, Doug wrote:
On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:30:46 -0800, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 02/14/2013 06:38 AM, Doug Miller wrote:
micky wrote in
:

[big snip]
Do I need the x-ray of my eyes?

Why are you asking for medical advice in a home-repair group on Usenet? How in hell should
we know? Ask your doctor.

It's complicated. Yours is not a bad answer, but it brings up a lot
of thoughs that relate to this. If I went to the EYE doctor, he'd
probably tell me to go back to the Imaging lab and get an X-ray. And
if he said do nothing, see below**. So why waste his time and mine
when I can just call the orthopedist and he'll fax a prescription for
the orbital x-ray to the imaging center.

And while it's often the case that it's silly to ask medical
questions on a home repair group, or home repair on a legal group,
etc. I'd give 90 to 1 odds that there is no metal in my eyes. You
guys work with grinders a lot more than my othopedist and I figured
you'd come up with a way I could have metal and not have noticed.

For example, when I was 6 and a cocker spaniel was following me, I
walked to another cocker spaniel I knew, so they could get to know
each other. The first one ignored the other and jumped all over me.
I couldn't tell if it was gratitude or anger. My mother couldn't
tell if the wounds on my back were claw scratches or if there was a
bite too, so she took me not to a doctor, but to a vet, who she
figured had more experience looking at dog bite wounds. (He said
there were no bites.)


Well at the very least it is an interesting topic, one which perhaps

Yes, as Trader sort of said, it's just amazing that two clinics could
have such different attitudes towards this. The first one that said
not to worry has 12 offices in Baltimore and adjacent counties. The
second one has 26 offices. Each of these 38 places has at least one
M.D. radiologist on duty.l. And both chains have many more offices
nationwide. Yet they have very different standards on this. (It was
the one with the strict standard that, when I asked, said I could feel
the metal thing in my eye move the moment I stepped into the room.
The machine doesn't have to be ON, becaue the magnet is always
magnetic. 1.5 teslas strong. .

Now I didn't feel anything, but that could be because I went straight
from the door to the machine, had other th ings on my mind, and only
lasted 3 seconds in t he machine before I panicked. If I had gone
into the room more slowly and waited maybe I would have felt it. But
what I think is the case is that there is no metal and nothing to
feel.

OTOH, if I get this orbital x-ray once, and I keep a better record in
my head of my grinding habits, I'll only need the one x-ray for the
rest of my life. (BTW, I'm also slightly claustrophobic and just got
off the phone with one of the 4 places, out of 38, that have wide bore
but closed MRI. (Open MRI that they advertise so much doesn't have
nearly the picture quality a spine doctor needs. It's adequate I'm
sure for some other puproses. X-rays and maybe CT and PET scans don't
show soft tissue. MRI's do, but they take 30, in my case, to 120
minutes and the machne clangs the whole time, just to make it worse.
They do have earphones and music and in this case FM radio stations
you can listen to.with earphones.

So they tell you to get a prescription for valium or something if you
have claustrophobia and to have someone pick you up and take you home.
My usual people are busy next week. I've never had a valium and have
no idea how tranquil it will make me for how long. In the opposite
direction, I can drink caffeinated coffee and go right to sleep


some here have not considered. I know about the risk, and would not
hesitate getting thoroughly "checked out" prior to having an MRI done.

That's what I'll do.

So, to answer OP, I personally would get the orbital x-ray done, just to
be on the safe side.

Dr. Jon

I'd go to the eye doctor and let him/her decide.

And what if the eye doctor says not to get the orbital x-ray and not to
worry about it, are you going to trust that person to make that decision
for you? I sure as hell wouldn't.

**Exactly. I have had so many examples of malpractice on me , I feel
the need to do my own research.

Fainted and hit the floor when I stood up, in front of my mother.
FAmily doctor decided I had epilepsy and gave me a pill for that.
Mother insisted on specialist neurologist, adn he put me on a second
pill in addition, also for epilepsy. When my mother asked if it was
habit forming, he said "What do you think we are doing here, Mrs.
Bigfoot, running an opium den?" She insisted on another speicallist,
this time it was a neurosurgeon. He watched my EEG and took me off
all the drugs. It turns out all I have is orthostatic hypotension,
which 1/4 to a 1/3 of all Americans have to some degree or other.

Dislocated my shoulder at college, went home the next day and saw the
family doctor the day after that. He should have immobilized my arm
and maybe I wouldn't have had 15 more dislocations and needed surgery.

Went to a clinic for a pain in my side. Doctor says I need
appendectomy that day. Friend gets me appt. at one of the fancy
hospitals on York Avenue in NYC. He said I just had a bruise. I was
15 pounds overweight and had the slightest bulge at my waist but it
was enough to hide the bruise from me. I should have used a mirror.

There are a couple I keep foregtting, plus stories my friends have
told me.

Jon

Thanks and thanks all.



No disrespect intended here but some of your stories are scaring me.

If you mean the occasions when I was malpracticed on (none of which
probably actually caused me harm** ) I would have no reason to feel
disrespected because you say that they scare you. If otoh, there is
another reason that you suspect you're disrespecting me, I can't
imagine what it is.

**The anticonvulsants didn't hurt me*** because my mother made me go
to two different specialists, until one made sense. The appendectomy
recommendation didn't hurt me because I did what my mother did, got a
second opinion. We may well have paid cash for these second
opinions, but it's well worth it.

***Although that might have been the semester I got a D in English,
instead of my usual B. . It was the same year, but if it was the
semester, how come I didn't think of that as an excuse at the time?

Still they offered me honors English the next year, 9th grade, and I
wondered why considering the D. Years later I learned that if you
got good math grades, or something, they offerred you honors
everything.
I
dread the day I get really sick due to old age. I got some experience
going thru the medical system when my mother was old and dread going
thru that experience again for myself.

You should tqe notes when you see the doctor, and have a friend go
with you if possible. The older you get, the more important that is,
to hear what they are saying while you are taking notes or considering
what you will say next. I've heard, Never go into the hospital
without telling somone that's where you went, or the hospital may
forget that you are there.

Some of my stories were 40 and 50 years ago -- the appendicitis story
was 30 years ago --, but they still do things like these and worse.
I had a bladder biopsy one Friday** morning last spring and couldn't
pee afterwards. At 2AM, I'd called the practice's doctor on call and
decided I'd better go tthe emergency room, because I still hadn't
urinated. Even on a Friday night, they registered me within 5
minutes and I saw the nurse 3 minutes later, and the doctor very soon
after that. They admitted me and had me take big calcium and
potassium pills. By noon or 2PM, the nurse told me that another
blood test showed my Ca and K were back up to normal levels, and had
in fact increased so much, it was impossible to have done so in the 12
hours I'd been there. That what had happened was at 2 in the
morning, they'd confused my blood test with someone else's. And I
probably never needed those pills in the first place (and may not
have needed to be admitted!) . Thank goodness it was Ca and K, where
a little extra won't hurt me. I didn't complain to anyone. Maybe I
should have. I wonder if they did any follow-up on t he mixed up
blood tests on their own.


**Patients like Fridays because they have the weekend to recover, but
it means the next day, your doctor isn't in the office.