[HN Gopher] Boxed - Things I learned after lying in an MRI machi...
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Boxed - Things I learned after lying in an MRI machine for 30 hours
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 102 points
Date : 2024-09-05 15:50 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aethermug.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (aethermug.com)
| debo_ wrote:
| Fascinating, and also a potentially new origin story for Magneto
| in the next X-Men reboot.
|
| There was a period of time where I had to get several MRI scans
| done, and I found them strangely relaxing. I was chastised
| several times for falling asleep (like the author), but I
| couldn't help it. I wasn't looking at anything but the ceiling of
| the machine, though.
| tapland wrote:
| Happens to me every time, it's very relaxing. I get them both-
| yearly and get a p. good rest.
|
| For shorter flights (1-2 hours) I usually fall asleep shortly
| after takeoff and wake up at landing. The a 320 neo I took
| recently actually felt too quiet to be relaxing.
| sib wrote:
| Agreed - I've had a number of MRIs of the upper spine area and
| I find it extremely meditative...
| baliex wrote:
| Thanks for writing about what was at times an unpleasant
| experience with such care and attention to detail
| debo_ wrote:
| > What I need is an app that does nothing but show you truly
| random pictures, with no curation and no memetic aspirations. If
| you know of one, please let me know.
|
| This must exist, right?
| 1f60c wrote:
| https://archillect.com/archive? Sadly it seems to have gone
| quiet.
| joebergeron wrote:
| Came to the comments to look for this! I was immediately taken
| by the idea after reading about the author's experience.
| Lammy wrote:
| Copy and paste this link to avoid HN Referer redirect:
| https://www.jwz.org/webcollage/
|
| "WebCollage is a program that creates collages out of random
| images found on the Web. More images are being added to the
| collage about once a minute, so this page will reload itself
| periodically. Clicking on one of the images in the collage will
| take you to the page on which it was found.
|
| It finds the images by feeding random words into various search
| engines, and pulling images (or sections of images) out of the
| pages returned.
|
| WebCollage also works as a screen saver on MacOS and Unix: it
| is included with the XScreenSaver package."
| jaredwiener wrote:
| Curious -- why do you want to avoid the HN referer?
| panzagl wrote:
| Because JWZ blocks links from HN.
| squigz wrote:
| Because otherwise it shows you this
| https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2024/hn.png
|
| The admins at jwz.org seem very mature.
| simoncion wrote:
| > The admins at jwz.org seem very mature.
|
| The admin at jwz.org thinks the same thing about the
| typical HN commenter, so I suppose it all washes out.
| squigz wrote:
| I'm glad they made their opinion known in such a clever
| way.
| kmoser wrote:
| Not too hard to find if you Google "website that shows random
| images". Examples: https://r.sine.com/index,
| https://picsum.photos/ (refresh to see new image)
| Palomides wrote:
| someone would need to make a little wrapper, but this redirects
| to a random image in wikimedia
| http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Random/File
| layer8 wrote:
| There's https://randomgenerate.io/random-picture-generator and
| similar sites.
| debo_ wrote:
| Thanks folks! These are all great links. I'd seen that jwz link
| ages ago and completely forgotten about it.
| Aachen wrote:
| > It's also how I realized that wearing special earplugs in noisy
| places helps me understand what the people around me are saying,
| mitigating a mild auditory processing disorder that I had never
| thought much about.
|
| TIL this exists. Does anyone know where to read more about these
| plugs? What do they do? I always feel like I've got a harder time
| understanding people than everyone else
| rondini wrote:
| There are lots out there, but a popular model you could check
| out is the Loop Engage. They suppress certain frequencies more
| than others to help distinguish speech from background noise.
| Aachen wrote:
| Very interesting, I see Loop is a Belgian company so it's not
| some distant shipping (I live a stone's throw from the
| border) and, for a niche (or so I thought) hearing aid I
| didn't expect a price tag far below a hundred bucks! Looks
| like good value if this does what it claims
| (https://www.loopearplugs.com/products/engage)
| Groxx wrote:
| Concert-oriented earplugs work fairly well for this, and
| they're pretty easy to find. They aren't safety-oriented so
| they don't cut by the ~30db of "normal" plugs, more often
| around 15db.
|
| Generally they (claim to) try to sound more neutral so it's
| "just" a reduction in volume without much tone bias -
| personally I can't tell and haven't bothered to check, the
| small volume cut is all I really care about and any tone bias
| would be small enough that it's tough to notice anyway.
|
| You can of course go much more specialized for many specific
| goals, but start cheap and simple. $20 or less is easy to find,
| though you might want to hunt around for comfort purposes (e.g.
| personally I only find completely soft ones comfortable for
| long periods, and anything with a long hard stem that pokes out
| gets bumped and seems like a safety hazard to me).
| Lammy wrote:
| Big fan of https://www.etymotic.com/passive-hearing-
| protection/
|
| I've also taken to wearing them while driving at highway
| speeds with the windows down (feels good man) after noticing
| how the wind noise was damaging my left ear especially.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| +1 for the ER-20s. Although I cycle between them, some
| Howard Leight Laser Lites, and some titanium Flare Audio
| things (from when they launched originally.)
| complaintdept wrote:
| Yeah this is interesting. It makes sense...you're filtering out
| low level background noise so all you really get is the higher
| volume stuff like speech. Just like adjusting squelch on a
| radio.
| szszrk wrote:
| Try any earplugs. They will all have that effect to some
| extent. In earplugs I can hear lyrics of a song that bus driver
| listens to, while without them I could not even tell if that's
| music or just noise.
|
| A minor warning: experiencing "silence" makes a lot of people
| uneasy - in my opinion it's just a matter of practice, but some
| find it so unpleasant that they would never use earplugs by
| choice.
|
| If you want to spend more cash I find Senner brand my sweet
| spot (doesn't block that much, reasonable cost, reusable).
| Alpine for a bit cheaper option with wide range of "dB's", good
| for concerts or motorycle, single pair will last long time. Or
| Loops, a lot of hype for these ones (people claim it does
| precisely what you are looking for), but it's overpriced in my
| opinion, and blocks a bit too much sound for me (to use in
| office, home, but perfect for a bar, commute, cinema). Also
| doesn't work well in wind. All 3 of those brands give fairly
| natural music experience, especially Senner.
|
| I write "silence", as it's never silent. You will hear many
| annoying things (hums, squeaks, high pitched noise, pulse, feet
| on the ground). This things sometimes get into your head and
| you can't stop thinking about them. That's also why googling
| people's experience with tinnitus (that usually has no physical
| reason - at all, or one that you can fix - and is constant) is
| the most depressing thing I did last couple of years - highly
| recommend not investigating that too far.
| m463 wrote:
| > experiencing "silence" makes a lot of people uneasy
|
| I remember riding a motorcycle with earplugs. (Uncertain if
| it is legal)
|
| they were the 3m 33 db ones, and were the exact opposite of
| uneasy. Although I could hear things around me, the muting
| made the world quietly slide by, and I felt like I was in the
| center of an island of calm. It was very peaceful.
|
| I suspect this is akin to driving a high-end car with NVH
| dialed into "ultra luxury silence", or sitting in the good
| seats of a jet where the sounds of the engines are far behind
| you and can't quite catch up.
|
| In this ever more hectic world, I think silence (and freedom
| from other distractions) will be more and more a luxury.
| lhl wrote:
| These are plugs with "flat attenuation" - the Etymotics custom-
| molded Musicians Earplugs are the classic ones (you go to an
| audiologist to make a mold) - they actually have a variety of
| attenuators, including a 25dB one (for drummers). I used a 15dB
| set for years and they were responsible for saving a lot of my
| hearing over countless shows, etc. Custom molds will lose their
| fit (your ear shape changes over time?) and when I was looking
| to replace them, I tested a bunch of the new plugs around, I
| found Earasers to be fit and work as well as my customs, at a
| much lower price (about $40).
|
| In loud environments, I've definitely found the same phenomena,
| where it was much easier to understand people talking w/ the dB
| cut. I never thought this was a disorder, but rather a natural
| result of lowering the sound floor that made voices easier to
| pick up/distinguish?
| jochem9 wrote:
| Back when I went to bars with way too loud music I would
| always plug my ear when someone was shouting in it. Made it
| much easier to hear what they were saying. I don't think I
| have any auditory disorders, but you never know.
| catoc wrote:
| And I now know _why_ you don't have any auditory disorders
| atum47 wrote:
| Have you seen how they help you measure your ear canal?
| https://www.earasers.net/products/earasers - brilliant. I'm
| thinking about ordering me a pair.
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| Warby Parker measured the distance between my pupils by
| having me upload a picture of my face while holding a
| credit card. I had to upload 3 pictures because I was too
| close or at a bad angle twice. I'm not sure if they had an
| algorithm or if they actually had people looking at the
| photos.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The online PD measurements are apparently not very good.
| I found this many years ago and it worked quite well:
| http://www.daniellivingston.com/2012/06/measuring-your-
| own-p...
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I never got earplugs, always this over-ear protection, you
| know, like you see in Topgun when the fighters take off from
| the platform.
|
| It's easy to fall asleep inside, especially when they show
| videos of panda's eating via a tilted mirror they put above
| your eyes.
| codazoda wrote:
| I also want to read more about this. I recently purchased
| AirPods, which have several different settings. I've noticed
| that in very noisy environments I can hear voices way better
| when I have Noise Cancellation turned on. Maybe it shouldn't be
| surprising. I could hear people close to me very well and I
| could even hear people 15 feet away. Conversations I don't
| think I've ever been able to ease drop on with nothing in my
| ears.
| pjerem wrote:
| I'm not sure it's the same phenomena though.
|
| Since Active noise canceling technology works by emitting
| "opposite" frequency of what the mic just listened, its
| limited by the processing delay so it is only really
| efficient in filtering sounds that are constant in time.
|
| Turns out most sounds you'd want to filter are meeting this
| criteria so that's ok.
|
| But for sounds that aren't constant like voices it still
| works but less.
|
| So it's not a surprise that the technology helps you isolate
| voices.
| S33V wrote:
| I've tried plenty of ear plugs for sleep, loud environments,
| and concerts. I'd stay clear of anything that's clearing
| putting most of the money into marketing like loop and talk to
| a audiologist or someone in the music industry. I ended up
| getting mine from "1of1 custom"[1] based on some research and
| references. They're a bit pricey, but based on the amount of
| loud environments I'm in they're literally life savers. I pair
| it with a sound level app made by NIOSH to let me know when I
| should put them in at bars/concerts.
|
| [1] https://1of1custom.com/collections/custom-ear-plugs
| barbazoo wrote:
| Get a hearing test, you might need hearing aids.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| There are a few brands I've seen. I have some "Eargasm
| Earplugs" that work well enough to make rock concerts enjoyable
| to me again.
| stavros wrote:
| I have the same thing, I can hear perfectly, but I can't
| understand speech over noise (I can't tell what people are
| saying). Flat response earplugs (musician earplugs, but not
| custom molded) negate this, and I can hear fine even in
| concerts, very comfortably.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| There's always this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bci68qKGrf8
|
| "I met Jesus in an MRI machine"
| nathancahill wrote:
| 181 views - 6 years ago.. how did you surface this?
| elzbardico wrote:
| I just wanted to say that anyone who stays voluntarily inside of
| a working MRI machine for any extended amount of time should get
| a presidential model as Hero of Science (if this medal doesn't
| exist, will please the congress create it just for this guy?).
|
| The guy did willingly, for science, what for most people would be
| an unspeakable nightmare.
|
| Thank you, Sir!
| ericmcer wrote:
| I have only done 15mins at a stretch, but I did foam earplugs
| with noise cancelling headphones on top and it wasn't too bad.
| I just pretended I was in some kind of sci-fi medical healing
| tube.
| iamtedd wrote:
| How did you get noise cancelling headphones in an MRI? Don't
| they contain metal, as well as magnetic coils?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Siemens have some in R and D that are going to be $50k ish.
| The ones OP wore will likely have been the standard ones
| which pipe music though fish tank tubing.
| dailykoder wrote:
| In MRIs I fall asleep faster than in most other places. I don't
| know why, but that's how it is
| sonofhans wrote:
| Me too! They have to wake me up sometimes, so I can stay
| still :D
| dailykoder wrote:
| I remember when I had a brain scan, they put my head in
| some sort of fixture and I tried hard to stay awake. Then I
| fell asleep, noticed that my head is somehow trapped, woke
| up scared and twitched a lot. That was a really challenging
| scan
| lostlogin wrote:
| > for most people would be an unspeakable nightmare.
|
| Most don't find it that bad, and many enjoy it. It's a bit like
| meditation, no one interferes and the drone of the scanner
| sends them to sleep. It's warm and comfortable.
|
| A significant number of first time patients have been told of
| the horrors of MRI and come pre-loaded with all sorts of
| misconceptions that helpful friends and family have passed on.
|
| I'm an MR tech - we scan about 40-50 body regions per day and
| have 2 time slots for sedation (should it be needed). On
| average we would use light sedation 1 or 2 patients a day. I've
| been a volunteer for optimising a few sequences this month, and
| recommend it.
| awad wrote:
| Idk, all of that also feels a bit like being in a coffin for
| some, especially if you're going reasonably far into the
| tube. I do get the sleepiness bit, though personally would
| prefer it cooler.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Ask to be cooler - the airflow can be increased and
| depending on how compliant the tech is, the heating (SAR)
| can be reduced. A slightly longer, but cooler scan. Every
| scanner I've ever seen has an option for a mirror to see
| out, so that may be an option. Most magnets from the last 5
| years are about 1.8m long, which helps. Some research
| magnets or older ones are a fair bit longer.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Not saying I'm normal, but I really like sleeping in tight
| dark spaces. A couple times I've thought of building/buying
| a coffin-like thing specifically for sleeping in. The
| aversion is totally reasonable, just trying to say -- for
| some people the coffin-ness is not a drawback
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Do you enjoy counting things? Like, obsessively?
|
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41422849)
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| You know, that's the 18th time this has been suggested to
| me...
| layer8 wrote:
| People are wired differently, many (most?) don't have a
| difficult time with MRI machines. I tend to find them relaxing.
| The only annoyance is that you're not allowed to move the body
| part being scanned.
| blondin wrote:
| indeed.
|
| i thought i didn't have any phobia until i had a single
| experience with an MRI machine with no sedation. i came out
| with mild claustrophobia that only time has been healing.
| logifail wrote:
| I had a "brain MRI with contrast" scan last year, I wasn't
| offered earplugs. It wasn't _that_ loud, I certainly wasn 't in
| any discomfort.
|
| With hindsight I'm not convinced about the informed consent re:
| the gadolinium infusion, but when you're lying prone in your
| underwear and the nurse is about to stick a line in your arm you
| don't feel particularly empowered...
|
| [Apologies for the anecdote but] one (with hindsight) comedy
| moment was that they asked me/reminded me multiple times that no
| metal was allowed to be present but somehow neither they nor I
| clocked I was still wearing my wedding band ...
|
| So I was lying there in the scanner and suddently I could feel
| the changes in the magnetic field via the ring on the ring finger
| of my left hand. A second or two of sheer panic as I wondered if
| I was about to see my finger get amputated and then I realised it
| was fine.
|
| I should have known better, gold is diamagnetic.
|
| [Decades ago] I spent my PhD years running my samples in various
| high-field NMRs. Nearly lost a set of house keys by taking them
| too close to a magnet, felt it trying to snatch them from me and
| managed to step away at the last minute....
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I'm told that back on the day, a guy working at JEOL, on a
| small-bore research NMI, was wearing a metal-banded wristwatch.
| And when it started to heat up, he reflexively pulled his arm
| out of the bore very quickly.
|
| That is a bad day at work.
| renewiltord wrote:
| What actually happened? I imagine he received a burn on his
| hand?
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| IIRC the story (I heard it second hand) he got a very nasty
| burn around his wrist.
|
| He was quickly moving a conductive loop through a very
| strong magnetic field with a crazy large gradient.
|
| (I'm not a physicist, but I assume that's the explanation
| for the burn.)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Makes sense. Thank you!
| travisjungroth wrote:
| > I should have known better, gold is diamagnetic.
|
| A gold ring is commonly 14k or 58.5% gold. You're lucky none of
| the other metals were magnetic. Sometimes nickel is included.
| grvbck wrote:
| There was an accident in a small Swedish hospital a few years
| ago, the patient scheduled for the MRI arrived with a 13 kg /
| 28 lbs weighted vest that he for some reason persuaded the MRI
| nurse to put on (I believe they were friends at the gym). The
| nurse did, but during the MRI session he left the monitoring
| room and went in to talk to the patient - and got pulled in by
| the magnetic field. Almost got strangled to death.
|
| Alarm went off, security guards came running - and were also
| pulled in... In the end it took hours to get everybody out, the
| nurse and one or two of the security guards were injured, and
| the MRI machine was damaged.
| teachrdan wrote:
| Every MRI machine has an emergency button labeled "Quench"
| that releases its liquid helium. After so doing, the MRI
| loses its superconductivity and anyone pinned to the machine
| should be released.
|
| Everyone I know who's worked with MRIs has been tempted to
| press the button!
|
| https://mrimaster.com/mri-quench/
| bb611 wrote:
| I had an MRI in February and specifically asked about my
| wedding ring, the tech said it wasn't an issue. We didn't
| discuss composition or any other details.
| Vecr wrote:
| That's not good at all. There are absolutely rings that would
| cause a problem.
| nelsondev wrote:
| Sounds similar to experiences inside sensory deprivation
| chambers.
|
| In the SF Bay Area, there's a company called reboot floatation
| spa , where you can book time floating in body temperature epsom
| salts inside a box that blocks noise and light.
|
| I also experienced intense visual imagery and extraordinary
| ability to concentrate on thoughts while my other senses were
| deprived. And then I got sleepy
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I tried an Epsom salt deprivation chamber and while it was nice
| I did not experience any visual imagery or anything that
| wowing. I felt very relaxed and I became sleepy as well. I
| think it was for about an hour, maybe I should have booked a
| longer session?
| jerlam wrote:
| I have also done a sensory deprivation chamber/float tank, but
| I mostly experienced nausea, from the miniscule amount of water
| movement. Otherwise it felt like a really bad night of insomnia
| - lying in bed and feeling trapped.
| pikseladam wrote:
| im still shocked that you can stand still for 30 hours. not one
| session i guess but its still hard
| MPSimmons wrote:
| How do aphantastic people find things they're looking for if they
| can't think of what they look like?
| rocqua wrote:
| They know it when they see it?
| peterarmstrong wrote:
| I can recognize my wife and son perfectly fine, I just can't
| make pictures of them in my mind.
|
| Longer version: https://leanpub.com/aphantasia/read
| niemandhier wrote:
| Old professor of mine used to put himself into his research MRI
| and perpetually scan his brain, claimed that the fields would
| help him think faster.
|
| Blood is diamagnetic or paramagnetic depending on the
| oxygenation, and fields stronger than 2T have been shown to have
| effects on neural activity, so who knows maybe he was right.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| I always feel lightheaded around high field MR scanners
| d13 wrote:
| MRIs are astonishingly musical. I spend a lot of time in them too
| and the sounds they produce are beautiful.
| geek_at wrote:
| If you enjoy dubstep, you'll have quite a good time in the MRI
| machine
| DrillShopper wrote:
| There are pulse sequences that make the machine play music -
| they get used in testing.
|
| The first one that I'm aware that was created was Daisy, as an
| homage to the IBM 704.
| lproven wrote:
| I've had several MRIs. I like industrial and EBM.
|
| No, it is very much not beautiful. It's like being inside a
| pneumatic drill. _Horrible_ experience.
|
| IME, IMHO, etc.
| virtualwhys wrote:
| I've had an MRI twice, once for my wrist and another time for my
| shoulder.
|
| The wrist experience was fine, I actually sat down with my hand
| inside of the extremely loud contraption.
|
| The shoulder experience was a different matter entirely. I was in
| Vietnam during the pandemic, and injured my shoulder during a
| table tennis training session.
|
| At the hospital they do the standard blood pressure/pulse
| routine, which went fine until the machine started beeping red,
| at which point the nurse arranged an emergency visit with a
| cardiologist as my standing heart rate was under 40 BPM.
|
| I felt fine but the cardiologist said I had something called
| bradycardia, and was at risk of a massive coronary if I didn't
| take medication to speed up my heart rate.
|
| I was understandably worried about my heart, but wanted to get my
| shoulder looked at, so into this long, thin spaceship-like tube I
| went...
|
| and pretty much instantly freaked out :)
|
| I pressed the panic button; a tech came in and said, "close your
| eyes before entering". That made all the difference, MRI went
| fine after that (well, despite how absurdly loud it is in there).
|
| As for my heart, I've probably had this condition my whole life.
| skzv wrote:
| Last time I went into an MRI, I realized half way through that I
| had forgotten to take off my metal necklace. Thankfully it was
| silver - it was an extreme purity test.
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| "Every four seconds or so, you see something new that you would
| never have guessed from the previous pictures. Each time it's a
| different cascade of activations in your brain, evoking random
| memories, creating unexpected connections, and stimulating
| thoughts that would never have occurred to you...What I need is
| an app that does nothing but show you truly random pictures, with
| no curation and no memetic aspirations. If you know of one,
| please let me know." I made a site quickly, that shows a random
| series of pictures from Unsplash, since I was curious to try
| this! https://random-photo-cascade.replit.app/ (Built with
| Replit's new agent feature, which is impressive for this kind of
| very constrained task)
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| And very quickly hit a rate limit apparently! Just switched to
| a different option without the unsplash limits.
| theshackleford wrote:
| I've had a lot of MRIs in the lead up to, and following the
| discovery of a SCI and something in my lower spine called "tarlov
| cysts"
|
| I don't know why, but I now find the sounds the machine makes
| comforting. I'll often play YouTube videos of MRIs operating for
| background noise now and my partner thinks it's super odd. She
| doesn't find it pleasing at all, but I find it very pleasing. I
| find it soothing.
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