One time in the hospital suffering from gi problems I had to drink a certain amount of liquid contrast for an MRI on my stomach , then when I was brought down to the room with the machine the nurse administered the IV dye or contrast and not even two minutes later I had to yell help because I got really sick . Am I allergic to the dye used for MRIs or was it a random occurrance? I felt instantly hot and sick . I have no known allergies could this potentially be one? Thanks in advance guys!
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MRI student here. It sounds like you were getting an Enterography, which is the only study our hospital has patients drink oral contrast for. Are you sure you were injected with contrast? Contrast isn’t typically administered until partway through these exams, and it sounds like the injection that made you sick happened at the beginning of the exam.
It’s more likely that you were injected with glucagon, a hormone that occurs naturally in the body. For enterographys at our hospital, a nurse injects glucagon before the exam starts, and then again when contrast is administered, about halfway through the test.
The glucagon slows your gut. The motion from your gut moving food through your digestive system can interfere with image quality. (Anyone who has had an MRI knows you have to hold still. Motion makes the pictures look bad.) Glucagon is administered to reduce the motion in the gut and improve image quality.
Unfortunately, glucagon has the side effect of making you nauseous. So, you were given something with nausea as a common side effect. You also had to drink a lot of (likely) nasty oral contrast. You probably also weren’t allowed to eat or drink anything else before the exam either. That right there is a perfect recipe for a nauseous patient. Hence why we see more people get sick during enterographys than any other exam.
The MRI contrast does make people sick sometimes, but it’s rare, and I don’t think that’s what made you sick.
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