Well, had my long awaited first neuro appointment this morning and I have to admit it was a bit of an anti-climax. Very nice, quite old neurologist, who asked me some basic questions. Talked about my trigeminal neuralgia quite a lot and listened politely whilst I told him about some of the other symptoms, smiled at me a lot and made some notes. Said he would get me booked in for an MRI and would either write to my GP with results or ask me to go back and see him.
No testing of reflexes, no testing balance, no physical exam at all. I must admin I was expecting the whole shabang and was fully prepared, I wasn’t prepared for a quick chat and let’s get an mri done. He didn’t mention anything re what he thought it could be and I didn’t ask, it was all very short and sweet.
Not really sure at this point whether I feel comforted or not by how simple it was, had built myself up to have to insist on further testing or to really have to emphasise the symptoms etc. I’m inclined to think it’s a good thing it was all so easy after reading some people’s struggles to get any sort of scans and such like done but then I think what if he’s pretty sure there is something which is why he went straight to mri without checking anything else. Oh dear, need to switch that person off, it is what it is and no amount of worrying is going to change any of it.
Does anyone have any idea how long a scan date takes to come through on average?
Thanks for listening to my ramble, it’s good to have somewhere to talk about it without having to worry how other people are affected by what you are saying.
Hi Sarah, I’m still waiting for my first neuro appt, but when I asked my GP about a private referral to speed things up, he dictated a letter to the hospital to try and bring my appointment forward, then lo and behold I got a call out of the blue asking me to come in for an mri, which had been ordered by a doctor I’ve never heard of let alone seen!
I was told that the results would take about 3 weeks to come through, so I’m still waiting. Trying to second guess why doctors do or dont do certain things is probably as useful as trying to guess the winning lottery numbers, but I’m guilty of it myself. I’m trying to be patient, hoping that they will find the cause of my symptoms and hoping that it’s something easily cured!
It seems that there is massive variation regionally and even by individual doctors as to the order they do things and the time it takes to do them. I hope you aren’t waiting too long for your scan xx.
My advice would be to call the Mri department and get your self put into the cancellation list I’ve done this with my last 2 mri scans and have have been done much quicker than my original dates for them
I had to wait nearly 12 weeks to get results which is a joke but you can always call the neuros secretary to chase them up
That is awful. I had my first MRI on Wednesday and would hate to have to wait that long to find anything out.
In answer to OP’s question about length of tome to wait for an MRI scan, I was told by the Neuro that the waiting list for an MRI was 5 weeks and, when the apt came through, it was 5 weeks to the day from my neuro apt! I am in Cambridgeshire and realise that this will vary from area to area.
wHATEVER PURCHASE A COPY OF THE RESULTS ON cd. The NHS is the best iinstitution in the world the problem is its so inrfficient; if they lose your results for future reference you will have a copy.