I have a followup PET scheduled next week. It's on Wednesday morning but before that on Tuesday morning, about 23/24 hours before the PET, I have a physical therapy appointment. This is the physical therapist who does massage of areas inside my mouth as well as my neck around the dissection scar, and the outside of my face/jaw where I had radiation and the tissue is still slightly puffy/stiff.

My question is this: she really works the tissue--usually to the point where it really hurts while she's doing it, although it always feels looser afterwards. Is this something that could show up 24 hours later as a hotspot on the PET? Or am I worrying too much?

Is there anything else I might want to avoid ahed of time to avoid false positives on the PET?

Nelie

I had my Pet/Ct last Friday and was told to avoid all exercise for the previous 24 hours. I'd call the center that does the scans - or your doctor to be sure. I'd probably re-schedule the appointment for therapy - just to be sure. You'd hate to have a spot show up that couldn't be determined if it were real or caused by physical activity of the area. I dont know if they show up differently on the scans or now - if the doctor who reads it can tell or not?

Hi Nelie --

The last PET Barry got, Hopkins sent us a letter to avoid all significant physical activity for 24 hours before hand. An article posted on the OCF News (mid-March, as I recall) quotes a doctor studying this to recommend avoiding exercise for 48 hours. I know the radiologist at our hospital was also quite clear about not "jiggling, tapping feet or fingers, etc." just before hand which was also mentioned in the above article. I downloaded detailed pre-PET instructions from another CCC's web site and they added advice about not eating foods containing a lot of sugar for 24 hours beforehand, to be sure the body is a bit sugar-deprived and will take up the labelled glucose.

Amy's right, you should probably skip the serious PT until after the scan.

I was also given strict guidelines as to what i could and couldn't eat before the scan for 24 hours. No sugars of any kind except FRESH fruits. No bread, no pastas, no potatoes, no processed foods basically. No sodas, no caffeine, no dairy other than cheese, no other carbohydrates. I could have water, meat, eggs, cheese, fresh fruit and fresh vegatables. I think that's it. YOu can search and find detailed lists quite readily fot this.

However, if you are diabetic - there were different guidelines - you'd have to check with the doctor if you are diabetic. They basically want your blood glucose levels to drop so that nothing interferes with the radioactive glucose they inject.

Well, I'm still pouring cans of stuff down my PEG tube for food. Hopefully "Jevity" meets their guidelines! I think I am going to cancel the PT, though. Too bad because I feel noticably stuffer in my neck and jaw when I miss a session...