Cat scan - radiation levels?

[Sarahsue1]

Hi Mumsnet, wondering if there are any radiographers out there who can help - I recently had a fall on holiday in Spain and local hospital gave me a cat scan. I didn't know until I returned home how dangerous they are?! I have the scans with the readings but have no idea what they mean - what levels I was exposed to. Lady passed me through the machine twice as I breathed on the beep the first time and I wasn't made to wear anything protective over eyes etc, not sure if this is ok. Have had a bad headache since but not sure if this is coincidence! Any advice / insight much appreciated

The headache is total coincidence. CAT scans are minimal risk or they wouldn't put people through them. Where did you hurt yourself when you fell?

It's not standard to wear eye protection for a ct scan.

CT scans have much more radiation than x rays but they are generally very safe. One exposure is very minimal.
You wouldn't need to wear any other protection whilst having the scan.

You would not be given a CT scan unless it was necessary. The clinical reason outweighs the risk. Eye protection is not routinely given. In the last 8 months I have had 4 CT's and I'm a radiographer .

You can always decline a CT scan; they may give you an ordinary X ray instead. IME CT scans are often a belt and braces approach which is not entirely necessary. Patients can decline any such procedure.

Thank you - I have had one before for a dental surgery which was a year ago so concerned about cumulative effects which I am reading about - oh google... - this time I fell from a small height and banged my head. Cremefresh have you had your CT scans in the UK? I'm wondering whether standards and regulations surrounding dosage varies in different countries. The measurements on my scan are MIP, IMA and SP. Are these standard or will any of these show radiation levels carried by scan?

I've had about ten CT scans, barium follow throughs, 4 MRIs, a few different X-rays and nuclear medicine tests. Not glowing yet!

I wouldn't worry about a couple of scans.

Glad to hear it gobbin! That sounds like a lot of tests poor you - what are nuclear medicine tests?! Or are you joking and am i being really thick? 😭seems like they are more common than I thought - cat scans. Initial search on google had me thinking it was all very extreme. Can I ask what your scans were for / where? Both mine have been face / head scans.

I get yearly nuclear medicine scans it is safe as an xray a catscan is just the same don't panic

Nuclear scans is when you get a nuclear dye injected into you so the xray machine can pick up any problems i get mine for my kidney fuction

Thank you @MrsJayy. @gobbin apologies for mg ignorance i didn't realise nuclear medicine scans were a thing! Nice to hear people doing well and keeping on top of things with checks, thank you for reassurance

I had one scan in Spain the rest in the uk , I've lost count of the amount of plain X-rays I've had.

Seriously, stop googling it won't help!

Its a camera not an xray sorry

I swear google senses fear and throws up worst case scenario

Thanks for the replies - google does definitely bring throw up all worst case possible scenarios. No more trying to work out my cat scan readings online tonight

@cremefresh mine was in Spain also - the last one - the setup was slightly different to the one I had in the UK but the hospital seemed good so hopefully I wasn't given a killer dose at the click of a button!!!

Without knowing a lot of information from your scan, it's hard to be specific but in my past experience the "effective dose" (a term we use to associate exposure to ionising radiation with risk of detrimental effects, inducing cancer) for a Head CT is 1-2 millisieverts (mSv). To put this in context, a member of the public in the UK will receive about 2.1mSv a year from natural sources of radiation (e.g in food, from cosmic radiation, from radon gas in the ground, etc) by just existing . So overall the additional radiation dose you have received, and the additional risk, is very low.

Please feel free to ask any more questions, as part of my job I calculate radiation doses and associated risk to patients/other people :) I would happily have a CT examination if a medic felt it necessary, there is legislation in place which means that each medical exposure to radiation must be justified (think a radiographer already said that upthread!) and that the radiation dose must be kept as low as reasonably possible.

Thanks so much @wheredoallthepokemongo - I am a bit worried that the regulation in Spain may be different to the UK because my scan readings are showing different measurements AND they put me through the stupid machine twice aaaaargh. I'm going to add a photo if anyone knows what type of scale they've used to measure I would be so grateful (so I can go on google and let a radiation conversion scale convince me something terrible happened joking...)

You really are worrying over nothing. People (me included and I work with radiation every day, sometimes I'm in the room while a person is being xrayed) have numerous scans over a lifetime and are fine.

Sometimes we X-ray neonatal babies many ,many times. People in our burns unit have almost daily X-rays they are all fine. CT scans do give a higher dose but honestly it is nothing to worry about. I was trying to add up how many CT's I've had over the years and lost count at 15 !

DH is a nuclear power consultant. You would have received a higher dose of radiation from the flight than from the MRI

MRI uses magnets not radiation, people get their knickers in a twist about it but don't realise that we are exposed to it every day, from eating bananas and going up in airplanes.

Those numbers won't give you anything useful so please don't worry about them; in Europe, the European Council write a directive regarding radiation safety in medical exposures (97/43/Euratom if you really want to know), and individual countries then have to implement the directive in their own law. So Spain will be working to the same principles and best practice as the UK, you can rest assured

Dose from Flying isn't that high, I'm surprised, unless you work in the airline industry. All the flight stewards & business-people get cumulative doses similar to an annual full body cat scan. And that might do that for decades.
Figure from here, There is a discussion here.

re the ~2.1 mSv background - if you live in Cornwall or Aberdeen it's 3 times that level - equivalent of 2-3 scans a year every year of your life

I'd worry far more about the UV exposure from sunlight - thats radiation too.

@wheredoallthepokemon go - thank you, how do people normally find out the mSv though, so strange that they seem to have used completely different measurements on my scan? I can't see standard units anywhere! @ragged that link was really interesting thank you.

These are some extracts from what I read - just interesting that some physicians are saying no amount of radiation is safe and others dispute the risk. Wasn't that impressed to read and am still not entirely convinced I needed the CAT scan but thanks for the replies - just something I am now very aware of!