I was so scared when my doctor told me I needed an MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging). I am claustrophobic but I didn’t want to tell the doctor. I asked the nurse if I really needed it. She said yes because I’ve had terrible knee pain and they wanted to see an MRI in addition to the X-ray. It didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought. It was an “open” MRI which means that the tube-looking machine has an opening so I guess if I panicked I could find a way out. I can’t imagine a closed MRI. That would be scary. There was a knocking noise and it took at least 30 minutes although I couldn’t tell exactly. I had earplugs and I think the anxiety was worse than the experience.
You are supposed to have a button that you can push if you become too scared or freaked out in the MRI machine. The knocking noise is awful but I was given a headphone with a choice of music to listen to. It made all the difference to drown out the knocking noise.