My mother believes I have seizures and had insisted to my neurologist earlier this month to schedule an MRI for me. Going to the appointment now and was wondering, what if anything they may be able to tell from it in relation to mental illness? Is an MRI something doctors may do for psychiatric conditions? My neurologist thinks it may be SZ, but I don’t know if an MRI would mean anything for finding that out because she didn’t schedule it until my mother brought it up.
I’ve had a bunch of MRIs because I have MS.
I’ve heard old reports and scans of People with sz having enlarged brain ventricles (holes).
But if you have had seizures, definitely see a neurologist.
I don’t think sz causes THAT.
I’ve never had anything like a grandmal seizure, it’s because I’ve had hallucinations and I guess sometimes seizures can do that? I’m not really sure about the reasoning of it. But, it might show structures that are sometimes different with those with SZ?
As far as I know scans are not used for diagnostic purposes, it is rather the other way around. Diagnosed sz patients are sometimes scanned to find out more about the brain-specifics of the illness. So i think they won’t look at your brain and say: oh we find this and this so you must have sz. What might happen is that they can rule out a neurological condition, and then infer that your symptoms must be of a psychiatric kind. Currently, i don’t think such diagnosis is up to the neurologist though.
Thank you! That makes things make a lot more sense.
I have to go get an mRI for basically the same reason as you (even though doc doesn’t think its seizures, she wants to check since my brother has epilepsy).
I didn’t even want my parents to know I was getting one. And they have a whole privacy system set up to where they can’t go digging. But guess what, they decided to mail my house about the mRI! So much for privacy!! I’m mad at them, and I need to call and give them a separate mailing address. I honestly don’t know if they’ll find anything at all. It’s not like all schizophrenic/psychotic disordered brains look the same way, after all.