[Roblin]

You are so right. I went to radiology school and we had a radiation rotection class we took that made me realize how dangerous radiation really is. Most doctors except for radiologists have no idea how dangerous it really is. They are not required to take a radiation protection class. CT exams and fluoroscopy exams are the worst offenders. A chest x-ray is rather low if it does not have to be repeated. It is sad but so many techs out there really don't care about repeats because they don't see the immediate effects of radiation and they figure most patients don't get that much. However a spine patient gets a bunch. The mAs is very high for a lumbar x-ray because of having to penetrate the bony structures of the spine. If one has a choice between an MRI and a CT, the MRI is the best choice because no radiation is used in an MRI. Unfortunately, the artifacts of metal implants make an MRI pretty useless at the levels of the implants. When being exposed to radiation always ask for a shield if it will not interfere with the area they are looking at. The tech should automatically shield you, but 9 out of 10 times they are too lazy to do it. I also ask for a thyroid shield if they are not shooting my neck. They look at me weird, but if you go into surgery which I used to do a lot, we all wore thyroid shields and a lead apron while using the fluoroscopy machine. I hate to think what I have ahead because of all the radiation I have had in the last few years. Unfortunately if you sign up for an FDA study it involves a lot of very frequent spinal x-rays which are relatively high in the dose of radiation you get. If someone tells you they aren't that bad, they are either ill-informed are they are lying to you. People need to watch out for themselves in the area of radiation protection because the medical field uses radiation way too freely, probably to cover their a...!
Roblin