Bone scan today - question

Kimmer

I know this is a very scary time for you! I think many of us have tried to read our own scans or tried to read the expression on the techs face to figure out out results. I know that when I had my bone scan they couldn't get the IV in my arm properly and in trying to do so spilled the dye they injected into me all over my sweater without me knowing it. When I had the scan clumps of abnormalities showed up until they figured out what the real issue was! The scan turned out to be clean but for a few minutes I was freaking out!!

I wish you all the best and am sending positive thoughts for a clean scan.

Hugs !!

The real issue is that they did not have me change from my street clothes and into a gown. The dye they they spilled on me was the abnormality that they saw! They had me change into a gown, rescanned me and it was clean.

It is weird! Good luck with your results!! Keep us posted !!

The injected stuff being processed by your kidneys?

I've had two bone scans now. Neither time did I change into a gown. The second time around I asked why - wouldn't the scan pick up the buttons on my jeans or something? The scan is actually looking for the dye coursing through my insides, not the pretty things I'm wearing on my outsides. 😀

However - like you I noticed a couple bright spots on the scan and kinda freaked out. The tech told me the two spots that appeared near where my liver would be were actually my kidneys, which process the injected tracer so it "lights up" pretty brightly but doesn't indicate mets. I had a couple other spots - one in the wrist i broke several years ago, another in a small spot of arthritis I already knew about. So - you mah see bright spots on the scree. But it doesn't necessarily indicate mets. Just wanted to share a little way of hope, and I hope your results come back clean.

Thanks for explaining Nancy. Sorry, Kimmer, I guess I was a bit cryptic from being so tired. By the way, the injection actually isn't a dye, it is a radioisotope called technetium 99m. It emits gamma rays that the scanner can see. Makes me feel a bit like I'm in a sci fi movie, and that big white room with the scanner is the holodeck from Star Trek. From Wikipedia (sorry I don't know how to fix the font):

"Bone scan....The nuclear medicine technique is sensitive to areas of unusual bone rebuilding activity, since the radiopharmaceutical is taken up by osteoblast cells which build bone. The technique therefore is sensitive to fractures and bone reaction to bone tumors, including metastases. For a bone scan, the patient is injected with a small amount of radioactive material, such as 700–1,100 MBq (19–30 mCi) of ^99mTc-medronic acid and then scanned with a gamma camera. Medronic acid is a phosphate derivative which can exchange places with bone phosphate in regions of active bone growth, so anchoring the radioisotope to that specific region"