I,m very concerned aout my latest mri report and my physician.?

Question

I recently had a new mri of the brain woith and w/o contrast there was two small white spots mr nuerolgist told my wife and myself that i probably have ms,he just needed to wait for the blood work to come back.I am very sure he had the blood work already because i called the lab and they said that the report had been faxed twice the day before.I really dont feel very comfortable with this guy.I called my primary care doc and left her a message what his diagnoses was, she called me back and said she had spoken with him and he told her that he was not sure if i have ms. My primary also said that it is very common to have white spots on the brain,and dont jump to any conclussions. Very confused and emotionally spent person here,i really dont have much left as of emosions anymore with everything that i,ve been thru.Falcons117

Answer 1

I understand how must you feel causing all such worries and concern. Though it is true that MRI is considered the best test to help in diagnosing MS, not all white spots signify MS. There are some common changes ( example changes caused by aging) may look like MS on a MRI.

MS is not easy to diagnose and it may require sets of follow up tests and investigations. For now, there is a suspicion you got MS based on the MRI result but that cannot be ascertained until further investigations. A follow up MRI may possibly be required after sometime to check out how those white spots are progressing.

For the meantime, try to calm down and try to live as normal as before. Hang on in there and keep following up with your doctor. Hoping it could be anything not that worse. But also give the possibility that it could be an MS. Be prepared for that and have the consolation in this fact that currently there are several types of therapy that have been proven to be helpful in patients with MS.

Answer 2

the radiologist will describe the findings on the MRI, and the diagnosis may then be obvious. Sometimes there may be several findings, some of which may be irrelavent to the problem. Sometimes the findings don't correlate with the symptoms, and then it is up to the family doctor or other specialist (like orthopedics) to interprate the MRI report for a "diagnosis". An MRI is a higher resolution imaging than a plain Xray, but it isn't perfect. There is still an art to interpreting the information.