Seattle, WAIt isn't known how many people could be suffering from Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF/NFD)associated with MRI Health Risks, possibly because NSF is a recent man-made disease and not recognized by all health professionals. But it is very real and perhaps not limited to people with kidney failure: Darlene (name withheld) has lived a nightmare, seeing her once-healthy husband suffer such a debilitating and horrific disease.
Darlene firmly believes that hundreds of people, like her husband, could be developing NSF after having a gadolinium-based contrast agent with a MRI/MRA. "What is most disturbing is that these people don't even realize what is happening to them," Darlene says, "mainly because doctors and the drug companies are trying to convince everyone that the patient has to have kidney or renal failure before developing NSF, and they avoid the words NSF or NFD like the plague.
It is absolutely VITAL that health professionals and the makers of these contrast agents step up to the plate and be held responsible. It cannot be put into words how horrible this has been and there IS NO END IN SIGHT."
Darlene says her husband couldn't have been healthier before he was injected with the contrast agent. One day he was chopping wood and renovating their home; the next day he had pains in his chest--they went to the ER. There was nothing wrong with his heart so he had a MRI to check for blood clots. To make a long story short, and seven hospital visits later, he is in complete kidney failure.
"My husband hasn't been able to urinate on his own; he has lost all muscle strength and balance, and his skin on his arms and hands is so dark and looks like alligator skin, but the least little scrape causes tears and bleeding," says Darlene. "The bruising is awful everywhere. His medications would have cost us around $3,000 a month--we thank the wonderful VA for this.
There has not been enough NSF/NFD reported for these doctors to know what to do or how to handle such cases. They even came up with a name called "Minimal Change Neuropathy" which is very rare in adults. In our case his specialist has only seen or heard of this happening to two other people, but everyone should be aware of any unusual symptoms after getting injected with gadolinium.
If you are given contrast dye, make sure they give you something to flush this dye out of your system right away or it can kill you. Go online and check out your symptoms and compare it with what you had done in the hospital; get medical records of receiving this contrast agent.
This is from my heart to everyone who may be hurting; my family is seeing a perfectly healthy man get destroyed right in front of our eyes."