Safety of MRI tests and contrast agents

Are MRI tests safe?

The usual MRI contrast agent is Gadolinium-based, and is not radioactive. MRI machines themselves use magnetic fields and not radiation. Fortunately, it's not possible to have an “overexposure” of magnetism. CAT or PET scans are a much different story, though, since they do use radiation.

I’ve had a number of MRIs, and I consider them to be the safest of the available imaging technologies. If you are having symptoms that warrant the test, then in my opinion it would be foolish to deny the use of a contrast agent if the study was ordered using one. I’m not saying contrast is zero-risk, but the risk of misdiagnosis without contrast (when needed) seems to me to be much higher than the risk of the contrast itself being a problem. I asked a radiologist about the risks once, and he said that although they have everyone sign a liability waiver form due to the theoretical risk, that he personally had never seen anyone react adversely to the contrast agent, nor had any of his co-workers.

The issue is that without contrast, many physical structures and details simply aren’t visible. That also means that a more correct response to not seeing anything with a non-contrast test would be to order one with contrast, not to just say that you’re all done. And if they do see something without contrast, they would have generally seen more details and therefore know more about what’s happening if it had been done with contrast.

However, not all exams require contrast; it depends on which part of the body is being imaged.

Managing allergies

I went through a number of years of having severe allergies. However, I was eventually able to largely cure myself; today I’m 90% better than I used to be.  A few things I learned along the way that might be helpful:

• Allergies are, of course, an immune system issue; immune system support is therefore essential. In addition to avoiding allergens, it's also critical to reduce your exposure to toxins.  Even micro amounts that wouldn't bother a healthy person can be very damaging to the immune system.  This includes things like pesticides, formaldehyde, perfumes, cleaning compounds, etc.

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• Long-term allergies are almost always associated with poor nutrient status.  Magnesium, in particular, is extremely important, but so are all micronutrients. "Natural Calm" is a good source of magnesium. A good broad-spectrum multivitamin can be extremely helpful, even though they can take a very long time to have a full effect (on the order of several years). "Beyond Any Multiple" (BAM) is a good one.


• The combination of the above two items means that supplement and food selection is very important: organic, pesticide-free food is crucial.  The issue with supplements is one of purity and freedom from microcontaminants.  Brands such as Thorne, Jarrow, Carlson, Now and Country Life are good.  I’ve had terrible luck with Twin Labs and Allergy Research Group.


• Myself and many of my highly-allergic friends (but not everyone) have found certain "neutralizers" to be extremely valuable.  These are temporary quick-fix things you can do to turn off an acute allergic reaction.  The one that works best for me is Alka Seltzer Gold.  It works is by rapidly alkalinizing the body, which has a normalizing effect on the immune system. I can be feeling absolutely terrible, exhausted, brain fogged, ready to collapse, and 5 minutes after consuming the Alka Gold, I feel completely normal.


• You might consider having yourself checked for heavy metals.  High levels can have a very damaging effect on the immune system.


• Yeast overgrowth can be another issue.  The yeast can cause the gut wall to become leaky, so that small particles of food enter the blood, which then provokes allergies.  A very low carb or even zero carb diet (Paleo or Paleo-like) can be a big help there, although you may also need to take an anti-yeast medicine such as Nystatin for a while to completely clear yourself out.


• Hormone levels are another thing that often seems to get tweaked when allergies flare up.  In my experience, they often seem to be a precursor to more severe health issues.  Thyroid issues, in particular, are very common—probably in part as a result of not getting enough iodine, which is already low in most people’s diet.  There’s a negative feedback loop here, because you also need adequate levels of thyroid hormone in order to be able to absorb nutrients from your food.  Testing and diagnosis of thyroid levels is (surprisingly) a bit controversial.  One easy at-home test is to measure your basal body temperature, before you get out of bed in the morning.  If it’s more than a degree low, that is almost certainly indicative of a thyroid problem.


• Active detox programs can help to significantly speed up recovery time.  They aren’t fun, though.

Sugar headaches

There are several different reactions that happen in the body when you consume carbs that can result in headaches. The most common one goes something like this (for refined carbs or sugars): when the carbs first hit your body (starting even with a sweet taste), it causes insulin to be released, in preparation for the upcoming glucose load. As you continue to eat, your blood sugar and insulin levels go up together for a while. The insulin works to move the glucose out of the blood into cells to be used or into storage (fat).

[[MORE]]However, because high-GI foods like sugar and refined carbs cause such a rapid increase in blood glucose (BG), the amount of insulin released can be more than the body really needs. As a result, your BG levels can over-correct, and you can end up hypoglycemic. It is that state of having a low BG that then causes headaches in some people (often along with sudden fatigue). Somewhat paradoxically, the high BG levels that hit before the insulin fully takes effect can also cause headaches in some people. You can get a hint as to which one is affecting you by the time interval between when you eat and when it hits, since BG tends to peak about a half hour or less after you eat, where the low might be two hours or so afterwards.

What happened for me when I first switched to Paleo is that my baseline insulin levels dropped as a result of not consuming carbs, but my body retained insulin sensitivity. That meant that if I did try to eat carbs, I would often over-correct to the low side. However, after maybe six months or so, I became more insulin resistant; the over-corrections to the low side stopped and my baseline BG level increased slightly. From what I've heard, this seems to be a common pattern.

Another sugar-related cause of headaches can be candida overgrowth. Consuming sugar feeds the yeast, which then give off a burst of toxins, which causes a headache. Fortunately, the Paleo diet is also basically an anti-Candida diet, so I would expect that effect to fade over time as well. Candida seems to respond equally badly to low-GI carbs (like berries) that don't produce the big spikes that sugar or refined carbs do.