CT Scan With Contrast

Just a few weeks ago I had an MRI to see if I had trigeminal neuralgia as the cause of my jaw and ear pain. This has been going on for a couple of years now, most of the time mild pain, occasionally bumping up to more severe. There was no evidence of trigeminal neuralgia but the radiologist told my primary care doctor that I had a venous malformation of the jugular and the carotid and recommended a CT scan to get better information.

I talked it over with my primary care and we decided to go ahead although as far as either of us know there are no current symptoms arising from the malformation. My main concern was that I have had several friends recently suffer dissections of their carotid arteries or jugulars. In one case this led to death and in the other four cases there was some degree of paralysis and aphasia. I also have a brother who had a stroke although because we are estranged I know very few of the details but sometimes the venous malformation episodes can present with similar findings and he was in the Czech Republic where there were language issues. So it seemed like a reasonable precaution to have the scan.

I certainly haven't received any results yet but I had other problems prior to the procedure involving the intravenous catheter. The technician had problems inserting the catheter prior to the MRI a few weeks ago, and then when I had a blood draw for a physical that phlebotomist had problems, so this time when the technician asked which arm to use, I simply told her to use the arm that worked best. Well, that turned out to be neither for her. She tried twice on my right arm and once on my left arm. The needles for the dye contrast are a little bigger than for either the MRI or the blood draw so this was not the most comfortable problem. So the technician went off to find the nurse who uses an ultra-sound machine to locate the veins and to help with the insertion. Hallelujah baby, got the needle in the first time and didn't wiggle it around looking for help. I have never had the easiest veins to work with and with aging and having to fast, including liquids, prior to these tests my veins have become the biggest pain.