How Do You Prepare For An MRI?

For an "ordinary" MRI, no special preparation is required, but leave any jewelry or other metal objects at home.

Under certain conditions, specialized MRIs require dietary restrictions provided by the physician. These include:

• When the MRI requires injection or ingestion of a contrast agent (a dye used for image enhancement)

• When sedation or anesthesia is necessary

• Other special considerations

It is important to notify the person performing the test of any illness, allergy, or previous drug reaction.

Open Scanners

Special scanners with open magnets exist for those people who are too claustrophobic and/or too large to fit in the regular machines. The image quality of the images obtained with some of the older open magnets is not quite as good as those obtained with regular magnets (but they're still quite exceptional).