This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! Finding out that you need an x-ray, MRI, CT or other scan can be scary for people of all sizes, but fat* people can face a lot of additional and, unfortunately, well-founded fears about the experience. Here are some tips and tricks for people who offer these scans to make the experience better for higher-weight patients.
Mar 18, 2023·edited Mar 18, 2023Liked by Ragen Chastain
I love this so much. Your advocacy made me tear up a bit. I can’t imagine having someone do that, and it’s really such a simple and basic thing!
Regarding contrast dosing: I needed a CT with contrast a few months ago, and the checkin tech asked my weight. I said I didn’t know, and they told me to guess. I took one of your lines and said we are not at the county fair. (That caught her off guard!) she said the system wouldn’t allow her to proceed without a number, and against my better judgement, I gave her a random number. (I really don’t know my weight. I could’ve been off by 10% or 50%.) she types in my number and then says she thinks they need it for the contrast dosing. I said if it’s a dosing issue, why am I being asked to GUESS? She says there’s basically two doses: for under and over 200lbs.
So here’s my thing: I don’t know if that’s true but if 200 is the cutoff (which seems very sloppy and probably inaccurate for children and adults who are far under and over the 200 lb line), why didn’t they just ask if I was over or under 200lbs?
I'm a Nurse Practitioner in Ontario, Canada. I am in a higher weight body and wow, the bias I receive from colleagues both about my self and advice I offer to patients is upsetting. I'm currently trying to advocate for 2 patients both declined their hernia surgery repair until they are below 250lbs and getting nowhere. I'm also struggling to access nuclear cardiac testing (pharmacological sestamibi stress test) for someone over 400 lbs. The hospital just declined and said patient too heavy for their table so send them elsewhere. Urgh! I'm so frustrated both for their experience and my own. Any information about nuclear testing equipment or procedures? It's brutal.
I love this so much. Your advocacy made me tear up a bit. I can’t imagine having someone do that, and it’s really such a simple and basic thing!
Regarding contrast dosing: I needed a CT with contrast a few months ago, and the checkin tech asked my weight. I said I didn’t know, and they told me to guess. I took one of your lines and said we are not at the county fair. (That caught her off guard!) she said the system wouldn’t allow her to proceed without a number, and against my better judgement, I gave her a random number. (I really don’t know my weight. I could’ve been off by 10% or 50%.) she types in my number and then says she thinks they need it for the contrast dosing. I said if it’s a dosing issue, why am I being asked to GUESS? She says there’s basically two doses: for under and over 200lbs.
So here’s my thing: I don’t know if that’s true but if 200 is the cutoff (which seems very sloppy and probably inaccurate for children and adults who are far under and over the 200 lb line), why didn’t they just ask if I was over or under 200lbs?
I'm a Nurse Practitioner in Ontario, Canada. I am in a higher weight body and wow, the bias I receive from colleagues both about my self and advice I offer to patients is upsetting. I'm currently trying to advocate for 2 patients both declined their hernia surgery repair until they are below 250lbs and getting nowhere. I'm also struggling to access nuclear cardiac testing (pharmacological sestamibi stress test) for someone over 400 lbs. The hospital just declined and said patient too heavy for their table so send them elsewhere. Urgh! I'm so frustrated both for their experience and my own. Any information about nuclear testing equipment or procedures? It's brutal.
Hi, Ragen,
I'm trying to leave a comment on your apnea post but keep getting "page not found" -- any thoughts?
Thanks,
Conner
I wanted to send this to my cousin, an X-Ray tech. But The Share link goes to a different article.