Not being able to obtain appropriate scans due to obesity really throws a wrench into the diagnostic workup:
When Dr. Susannah Cornes’ patient came in with paralysis and numbness, she wanted an MRI to look at the spinal cord. But the machine couldn’t handle someone of her patient’s size — more than 350 pounds.Absent that option, Cornes, a UCSF resident in neurology, recommended exploratory surgery. The patient declined, choosing instead to live with the numbness and limited movement.
It’s a problem doctors say they see as frequently as once a month as the number of people with morbid obesity climbs in the United States: A patient complains of abdominal pain. A CT scan or MRI could pinpoint the problem, but the patient is too heavy or too large for the machine to handle.
(via The Medical Quack)
Related posts:
- Obese people are gorging to qualify for gastric bypass
- It’s difficult to treat the morbidly obese
- When fat doctors talk to obese patients
- Doctors to obese kids: No more fuzzy terms
- Ban IVF for the obese?
- Increasing radiation exposure to patients from CT scans and other imaging tests
- So much for prevention saving money
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 6 comments }
On occasion, sad as it seems, we would send the extremely obese patient to the Lincoln Park Zoo for imaging.
Brown no longer does this as it is a HIPPA violation.
They just don’t get any imaging at all.
Thanks Clinton!
Also, the Rhinos were nonplussed, so no human scans
Big people can always go to the open-sided MRIs as long as there’s one around.
Having failed all of that, could always get an older doc on the case who remembers how these things were managed before the pictures–was it really exploratory surgery?
6:10,
You just don’t “explore” the spinal cord. Not even in a skinny person, certainly not a whale.
Comments on this entry are closed.