OK, that sucked.

[gridlore]

I have never had such a violent reaction to contrast before. About an hour after the PET scan finished I suffered a really bad case of intestinal distress, and just feel like people have taken hammers to me.

After a mostly-sleepless night, I called in.

Of course, it might not be the contrast (although calling sick because of radioactive sugar was one of the best excuses ever) but maybe something I picked up walking around. kshandra hasn't been feeling well since her flu shot. I suspect she caught something while waiting for the shot and I may have gotten it from her.

Whee.

This morning I woke up in so much general pain that I took a vicodin.

Comments

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon.

[guppiecat]

Contrast makes my breathing stop. Turns out, I'm allergic.

Glad I was in a hospital when we figured that one out.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

I hope your boss is being cool about all these health-related absences?

[kengr]

Well, it ain't exactly "contrast". Contrast is supposed to be inert. But the stuff they give you for PET scans *has* to be sttuff that your body will process. That's to get the radioactive stuff that emits the positrons they are scanning for.

So your body may have just not liked all that sugar. Or, knowing how weird you are, your body might not have liked having all those positrons in it.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

So is it FDG-PET (fluorodeoxyglucose)? I'm currently marking a pile of neuro papers using those tests...

Brain or body scans? Although I can't think of any way that FDG could cause a reaction that wouldn't also occur with normal glucose, the crapness is still a bugger; I hope you're back in fighting trim soon.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

...although, come to think of it, FDG works because it is taken up as if it were normal glucose, but is metabolically inactive (and therefore immobile) until after it decays (when it turns into relatively normal glucose). This may have caused it to function as a kind of glucose antagonist, temporarily "clogging up" the normal glucose-uptake structures.

If you've got a body that's sensitive to short-term fluctuations in glucose metabolism (eg: diabetic), there might be an issue there...

The above is just mildly informed speculation on my part, but a bit of time with Google Scholar or the Cochrane Library would probably provide a definite answer. If my speculations are right, diabetes and similar conditions would likely be a known risk indicator for adverse outcomes with FDG-PET.