[zx10guy]

Just had one done. My situation is very different than yours as it was to focus on my small bowel. As others said the machine is loud. The tech had a box of ear plugs to give to patients going through the scan. For my situation, I had to drink both the contrast, get some contrast injected into me via an IV, and an injection to slow the movement of my small bowel.

During the scan the hardest part was having to hold my breath and stay still. I had to do this through out what was about 30 or so minutes of the scan. And the intervals of when I had to hold my breath and how long varied a lot. It would have been helpful if I was told how long I needed to hold my breath. There were times I had to start breathing because it felt like I had to hold my breath for about a minute and a half to 2 minutes. As a reference, I don't have any issues holding my breath during CT scans.

And finally, I got really jacked up after the MRI scan. Never felt that way before. Felt nauseous and off balance. I'm attributing it to that injection to relax/slow my small bowel.

As with any scans, I always recommend getting a copy of the scan images on CD which they can provide to you if you ask. I always ask for scan images on CD before I leave the facility. I have to wait a bit but to me it's no big deal. Also, request a copy of the radiology report for your records. With all the bloody scans I've had to go through over the past 5 years, I have a stack of CDs and radiology reports.