Radiation anxiety kindly guide

[amithkumar]

Hi,

I am 37 years old male, i had to go through a cervical spine xray in july last year and a heat ct(plain) in september end last year ...

Till feb of this year i was blissfully unaware of any major radiation risks till i read an article about radiation risk and how it can be life threatening and the anxiety kicked in ....

So i went to the radiologist in a major hospital here in my city and asked about the risk as i was fearing the consequences .... He said below things ...

1)Risk from radiation in children is very real and they always avoid doing scans on kids unless very important also they absolutely avoid repeat scans on kids for same reason ...

2)Risk in adults is also there but in certain cases like continuous daily exposure like people in this field have, or multiple scans over a period of time ...

also he said if an adult is exposed to frequent scans that are unnecessary the risk is there but like 1 in 1200 ...

3)Coming to my case he said one cervical spine xray and one head ct after 50 days is not going to cause me any lethal or non lethal complications ...

he also suggested that it is good that now i am aware of the risks and should stay away from scans as more then the scan the anxiety is going to trouble me....

But i keep looking up the internet and calculating the risks , i need to know if any one here can guide me as to whether my fears are more out of health anxiety or the cumulative effect of cervical spine x ray and one head ct is something i should be worried about ...

Regards
Amith Kumar

[Fishmanpa]

There are potential risks but that being said, there is not one actual "documented" case where scans or x-rays were the cause of someone's cancer.

I'm a cancer survivor. Guess what I was treated with? Yep. Radiation. 5 days a week for six weeks. Enough to literally burn the skin off my neck. In addition, before each treatment, I was given a CT scan to make sure the radiation was aimed properly at the areas to be treated. Add to that all the x-rays, PET and CT scans, nuclear stress tests for my heart and such that I had and you'd be shaking in your boots. I'm alive and well and other than glowing a bit in the dark, there are no side effects

Positive thoughts

[amithkumar]

@Fishmanpa - thank you sir, you are truly amazing, i now know how to move ahead in this regard ...

Amith Kumar