Serpo
17th March 2011, 03:40 PM
By Linda Carroll and JoNel Aleccia
updated 3/16/2011 5:10:38 PM ET
A wave of nausea washed over Marcie Iseli shortly after her CT scan finished. Then her head started to feel strange, as if heat was emanating from somewhere deep inside. Her face started to feel uncomfortably warm, like she’d been sunburned.
She’d gone in for the brain scan because of headaches and nerve pain on one side of her face, but now doctors had no idea what was wrong with her — especially since the scan showed no abnormalities. Two weeks later, clumps of her hair started falling out, followed by debilitating fatigue and problems with balance and memory.
“I lost a 4-inch wide strip of hair that went from one side of my head to the other, recalls the 36-year-old mother of two from Kenova, W.Va. “I went to my family physician and then to a dermatologist who said he’d never seen anything like it.”
It was two months before Iseli learned the cause of her mysterious symptoms: She’d gotten an overdose of radiation during the scan of her head, a blast almost eight times the expected amount.
Within minutes, Iseli became a victim of radiation poisoning, with some of the same symptoms and possible long-term effects that may face workers now exposed to high levels of radiation at Japan’s ailing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
While Iseli’s targeted medical overdose is not the same as the full-body blast of a nuclear accident, it does offer some insight into the experience of radiation exposure, doctors say.
“When you overload the system, you’re going to get in trouble,” said Dr. Reuben Mezrich, a professor of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42100129/ns/health-health_care/
updated 3/16/2011 5:10:38 PM ET
A wave of nausea washed over Marcie Iseli shortly after her CT scan finished. Then her head started to feel strange, as if heat was emanating from somewhere deep inside. Her face started to feel uncomfortably warm, like she’d been sunburned.
She’d gone in for the brain scan because of headaches and nerve pain on one side of her face, but now doctors had no idea what was wrong with her — especially since the scan showed no abnormalities. Two weeks later, clumps of her hair started falling out, followed by debilitating fatigue and problems with balance and memory.
“I lost a 4-inch wide strip of hair that went from one side of my head to the other, recalls the 36-year-old mother of two from Kenova, W.Va. “I went to my family physician and then to a dermatologist who said he’d never seen anything like it.”
It was two months before Iseli learned the cause of her mysterious symptoms: She’d gotten an overdose of radiation during the scan of her head, a blast almost eight times the expected amount.
Within minutes, Iseli became a victim of radiation poisoning, with some of the same symptoms and possible long-term effects that may face workers now exposed to high levels of radiation at Japan’s ailing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
While Iseli’s targeted medical overdose is not the same as the full-body blast of a nuclear accident, it does offer some insight into the experience of radiation exposure, doctors say.
“When you overload the system, you’re going to get in trouble,” said Dr. Reuben Mezrich, a professor of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42100129/ns/health-health_care/