I am asking this for a friend of mine.
Her husband has undergone oral cancer surgery and therapy for tonsil cancer. He had some extensive surgery and cannot swallow. With the excessive saliva he is concerned about being able to go through an MRI exam and not being able to spit out the saliva.
The MRI is actually for back problems and he'll be having 2 areas scanned , so I imagine the exam will take a long time to do.
Has anyone had problems with having exams done and what have you done to address this problem. As of yet he doesn't have a suction machine.
I don't recall reading anything regarding this on the forum yet.
Thanks.
Vicki

Vicki,

I've had several back MRI's in the years since my treatment (although I don't recall being in a situation where excess saliva/mucus was an issue). However, each time, there has been an emergency button I could press if I needed to interrupt the process for any reason, so I would assume if he needed to get rid of the excess from time to time they could pause to let him slide out and do that. Also, since the machine isn't continuously taking pictures for the entire time, there are breaks where he won't have to be perfectly still.

I'd suggest that he discuss this ahead of time with his doctor or the technicians who will be doing the test to figure out how best to deal with it.

Cathy

Vickie, he could also take his most effective "dry mouth med." before he has the MRI and some kind of relaxation med. to decrease anxiety. Alerting the staff is a very good thing to do also. We traveled with John's suction machine for over a year- so if he keeps having problems, it might be a good thing to investigate. Amy in the Ozarks

Hi,

I did speak with the staff today and they said he would have a device to push if he needed assistance. They did say getting up and down would really prolong the test because they would have to set everything back up again. Hopefully he'll be able to manage by turning his head to clear his mouth.
They said each scan segment is several minutes long, so if he can hold off until the end of each scan phase he should be all right.

Vicki