CT Scan Question

Any of you in the medical field know if 2 scans back-to-back would be considered normal procedure? I had two abdominal CT scans yesterday, one right after the other, due to my pants not being down far enough on the first one. I didn't say anything because I figured they knew what they were doing. I dang sure hope they did!

By the way, I was told everything looked good. Had some abdominal pain for a couple weeks and it finally convinced me to go get checked.

I had two back to back ...

The first was supposed to have contrast ... I told the operator that the contrast was running down my back instead of going in the IV .... She said no it just feels that way going in
...
After she finally saw it dripping on the floor ... she pulled me out .... had to go get another bag and start all over again ....

i had one at the VA back in Dec and they saw something but they will not do another for 6 months bc of over exposure to radiation so idk if that's normal for back to back

BriarPatch99 said:

I had two back to back ...

The first was supposed to have contrast ... I told the operator that the contrast was running down my back instead of going in the IV .... She said no it just feels that way going in
...
After she finally saw it dripping on the floor ... she pulled me out .... had to go get another bag and start all over again ....

Click to expand...

You ain't glowing at night, or have x-ray vision now, do you? Yeah, I think some goobers did mine, too. I am hoping the first one was just a test run of some kind, without actually exposing me to the radiation, but I dunno.

I was rolled in there, and all they did was put me on that table and told me to pull my pants down to my thigh. Then they hooked the IV up with that dye. They never weighed me or anything. I finally did get a little warm from the dye right before the second scan was complete. It was either the dye or too much radiation that caused me to get warm.

b rad said:

i had one at the VA back in Dec and they saw something but they will not do another for 6 months bc of over exposure to radiation so idk if that's normal for back to back

Click to expand...

I've looked around the web and haven't found anything regarding this, so it may not be normal procedure.

My wife is a 30 year X-ray tech and she tells me about goof ups all the time.

Silver Britches said:

You ain't glowing at night, or have x-ray vision now, do you? Yeah, I think some goobers did mine, too.

Click to expand...

That gal did have a really wild look on her face after the first ..... and was in big hurry to get me out of there after the second ...

Didn't think to check for the green glow !!!

The average CT scan will subject you to between 6 to 10 millisieverts of radiation. You get around 3 mSvt/year from natural/bakground sources.

If you fly a lot, you'll pick up about 0.03 each 3-4 hrs you're in a plane. For me, that adds up to about another 0.5 to 1 mStv/year

For occupational exposure, the limit is 50 mSv in a single year with a maximum of 100 mSv in a consecutive five-year period

So basically, back to back CT's will give you about 12-20 mSvt, so the equivalent to about 3-4 yrs of background, unless you fly a lot.