Hi all gone a year n 3 months after diagnosis. Having aches n pains knee n back but panicking all Th time about it coming back. Most pain in shoulder blade side of auxiliary clearance Saw doctor said will do an MRI on spine but won’t show shoulder or liver Is this enough don’t know why can’t do a bone scan or MRI of it all is it down to cost. If it comes back does it show in spine first I don’t really know would appreciate all our experience. Rozita xx
Bump
The MRI will show all the structures in the part scanned. If do neck to hips, will show all abdominal organs and bones in that area, so shoulder blades liver kidneys and lungs included. If there is a problem it should show up.
The MRI will show all the structures in the part scanned. If do neck to hips, will show all abdominal organs and bones in that area, so shoulder blades liver kidneys and lungs included. If there is a problem it should show up.
Sorry Pattymi but I don’t believe that’s correct. I had a spine MRI and I asked the radiologist if it would show my shoulder and he said no. That is a separate MRI.
Rozita, I’ve had constant pain in the shoulder blade area since my masstectomy and axillary clearance. In fact I’ve been having physio for the past 12 months. Can’t say it’s helped greatly. I also have massage which has helped to some extent. My therapists seem to think it’s probably linked to all the scar tissue and loss of muscle on the chest. It is worrying I agree, but I think it does happen after this type of surgery.
Be interested to see what other people say on this subject.
take care, Elinda x
I was diagnosed in July 07 and have had bone mets from day 1. Am used to having bone scans to check on them but had my first ever CT scan last month and first ever MRI last week (due to different backache and for baseline purposes).
There is a difference between all the scans and I checked with the radiographer to make sure I was correct. Her version was that the bone scan is to show any areas of increased activity in the bone, either due to mets or normal wear and tear, a CT shows up nodes in organs so are commonly used for liver/abdominal/lung queries, and a MRI is to see if there are any problems causing pain such as mis-shapen bone or swelling and whether that is pressing on anything -the spinal cord in my case. When I went for the MRI, the radiographer said they had instructions to scan 3 areas of my spine but they would do the whole spine as it would be quicker and easier because of the locations requiring investigation.
Hope this makes sense.
A thought Rozita, along the same lines as Elinda - could it be the start of a frozen shoulder? I had mx and full anc and had a lot of shoulder pain around the blade area. I mentioned it at a post-surgery checkup and was referred to physio as they suspected possible lymphoedema and frozen shoulder and that was what it turned out to be. I had physio for over a year and it did work in my case but I did have intensive therapy and my physio was brilliant.
Liz
That’s really interesting Liz, I wondered why they chose CT for one thing and MRI for another.
Mine wasn’t frozen shoulder although I do know that can be a problem for some women. I think mine is a more long term problem and I have some weakness in that arm now too and the shoulder as a result of the surgery.
Rozita, perhaps it’s worth seeing your GP to see if you can have physio. (The route I went was to be referred to a rheumatologist who then suggested physio to my GP. I think it depends on the services in your area.)
Elinda,
I think it was because the bone scan I had at Xmas showed slight spread in my spine and I had to have a rads blast to 3 vertebrae. Onc arranged the CT partly as I’d never had one, partly to ensure the only spread was in bones and partly as a baseline scan for organs. That came back clear apart from the dodgy bone areas so was a huge relief.
I had the rads at the end of Jan and then a couple of weeks ago just before my post-rads checkup, my back went. Panic !!! I couldn’t get out of bed one morning so emailed onc’s secretary. Onc was on hols but her registrar advised me to go to docs and get strong painkillers and fax details through to them. The painkillers helped loads and I lasted til my appt. Saw the registrar and she arranged the MRI ‘to be on the safe side’ although she thought I’d just done too much and it was nothing sinister. My back has continued to improve so it looks like that was the case although I’m still being very careful. Get MRI results on Thurs but am sure they’ll be ok.
At least now I’ve almost had the full set!!!
Liz
Liz - it’s so easy to think the worst all the time but I think we have to trust the experience of the doctors too. We can also injure ourselves too which we sometimes forget I think!
Hi all thnx for your advice I had my MRI yestoday so hav told myself if it’s all clear I will try n stop myself from panicking n get on with my life. Trouble is they said it’s 2 t 3 weeks for Th results is this normal ??
Rozita xx
Hi Rozita
In my experience it is. This is usually because they like to discuss the MRI at the MDT and get different viewpoints on it. It does cause a delay but means you’ve got several experts looking at it.