Ultrasound

A former-patient has kindly given an account of their experience when they visited the Ultrasound room.

Purpose:
To check a slight pain in my side in the region of my kidney.

Experience:
I was met by a nurse who explained what would happen, then asked me to undress and put on a gown. I was shown where to wait until the radiologist was free.

I was collected and taken to the scanning room where the radiologist asked me to lie on a couch. To improve the quality of the image, he lightly smeared some gel on the area of my skin where the small hand held scanner would traverse. Sitting besides the couch the radiologist gently moved the scanner over my skin while watching the image on the TV monitor.

The whole scanning process took about five minutes, after which he wiped off the gel. The radiologist would not say if he had found a problem, but he would look again at the images later. I was told the result of the examination would be reported on within ten days and I would get the result from my GP.

I was then told I was free to go, get dressed and leave.

Duration:
Although the scanning took about 5 - 10 minutes the total time spent in the department was about ½ hour.

Side effects:
At no time did I feel any discomfort and there were no side effects.