Getting Through a Scan When You Cannot Move

The appointment letter says lie still for twenty-five minutes. You will be in a tube, or strapped to a table, or asked not to move while a machine runs, and the part of you that needs to be able to leave a room is already objecting.

Plenty of people find this the hardest part of being investigated. Not the result, the machine. That is common, it is manageable, and there are specific things that help.

Tell them beforehand

This is the single most useful thing and most people skip it, because it feels like making a fuss.

Call the department before the appointment and say it plainly: I find enclosed spaces very difficult and I am worried about panicking. They hear it constantly and they have answers you do not know about.

Depending on what the scan is, those answers can include a different machine with a wider opening, going in feet first, a mirror that lets you see out of the tube, a staff member who talks to you throughout, a hand you can hold, someone allowed in the room with you, or a short practice run before the real thing.

Ask your doctor too, well before the day, whether a small dose of something calming is appropriate for you. If it is, that is a plan rather than a failure, and it needs arranging in advance because you will not be able to drive afterward.

Know what you actually control

Panic in that situation comes largely from the sense that you cannot stop it. So find out what you can stop.

There is always a buzzer or a call button, and you can press it. Say out loud before you go in: if I press this, what happens. The answer is that the scan pauses and somebody comes. Knowing that, and having said it aloud, changes the whole experience.

You can also ask them to tell you the length of each section. Three minutes, then four, then six is a very different thing from an indefinite stretch of noise.

Have a plan for the inside of it

Decide in advance what you are going to do in there, because the middle of a scan is not where you want to be improvising.

Keep your eyes closed from before you go in. Most people find that going in with eyes shut and keeping them shut is easier than seeing how close the roof is.

Breathe out longer than you breathe in. In for four, out for six or seven. Long out-breaths settle the body, and they are something to do.

Then run something in your head that needs attention. Count backward from three hundred in threes. Name every street on your route to work. Go through a song line by line. Plan a meal in detail. The aim is occupying the part of your mind that would otherwise narrate the ceiling.

And use the noise. Many people do better treating the knocking as a rhythm to count than as something to endure.

Handle the surge if it comes

If panic rises, nothing has gone wrong. It peaks and it comes down, generally within a few minutes, and it cannot hurt you in there.

Say to yourself the three things that are true: this is a feeling, it will pass, I can press the button. That order matters, because it keeps the exit available without using it.

Press it if you need to. Pausing a scan and finishing it two minutes later is a complete success. Many people need one pause and then get through the rest.

On the day

Small things stack up in your favor. Go to the bathroom first. Take your own earplugs if they allow it. Wear comfortable clothes with no metal. Have someone come with you, even if they wait outside.

Go easy on caffeine beforehand, since it makes a braced body more braced. Eat something unless you have been told not to.

And have something planned for afterward that you like. A long walk, a coffee, a ride home with somebody. The hour after is often shakier than people expect.

If you cannot do it, say so rather than disappearing

The worst outcome is quietly not going, because then the question the scan was asked remains open.

If you got there and could not, tell them. If you canceled, call and rebook with the conversation above. People do this on the second or third attempt all the time, and no one in that department thinks less of you for it.

There may also be an alternative. For some questions a different kind of imaging will do, and it is worth asking the doctor who ordered it whether anything else would answer the same thing.

When to get help

Please talk to your doctor if the fear of enclosed spaces or medical procedures is stopping you getting care you need, because that is treatable and it is a serious enough reason on its own to ask. Short courses of therapy work well for this, often in a handful of sessions, and medication for the day itself is a reasonable conversation to have. If you are having panic attacks outside this situation too, or you are arranging your life around avoiding them, that is worth taking to a professional rather than managing alone. And if the thing the scan is looking for has left you frightened and unable to sleep, say that at the appointment as well. If you have had thoughts of not wanting to be here, please tell someone today. In the US you can call or text 988 at any time.