My two lumbar MRIs are different

I had a lumbar MRI in Sept 2013 and one in 2014, about a year apart.

One shows more damage than the other, which is practically normal. Just a mild bulge at l4-l5.

They were done on different MRI 1.5 Tesla machines.

While doctors have been able to read the disks, the facility refused to compare the two disks, saying i didn't have the right DiCom format for the earlier year.

I am somewhat suspicious. Certain problems are just plain gone or missing. I can't get the new MRI place to do a comparison because they say they "can't".

I drove 4 hours (and had to take a hotel out overnight) to get the first one done because i needed a quiet MRI (i am sound sensitive). I then luckily found a facility only 25 minutes from my home which had installed a new quiet MRI from a different manufacturer.

Could there have been a mistake? Some facet hypertropy in two places, stenosis, and an annular tear are "missing". How can i remedy this? Or is this difference due to different radiologist's perspectives, or the machine? etc.? Has this happened to anyone else?

It's super important to me to get a correct reading!

thanks

thanks. Both MRIs are state of the art - new, so i suspect that it's the radiologist, and i need to get my MRI disk converted so that the second place can do a valid comparison at the facility. Or see a third radiologist.

And MRIs don't change that fast, they are a huge investment, i am guessing you'd buy one every 20 years??? so a one year difference is peanuts.


Alternatively it could be the machine's ability to read at 1.5 tesla just was at the threshold. But i don't think that's it.

Or... the first place i went was a trauma center and just read things differently?

everyone else (doctors) has been able to open the disk. but the 2013 disk was a little glitchy at least when we copied it internally so there is a smattering of truth. Still you'd think a hospital would be able to read it too if others could.

now i have to find out how to make a new diCom copy of this disk. Will have to research unless any one knows how to do this.

many thanks,

maybe the radiologist didn't want to comment because the older one was done at a different facility. I'd like a second opinion.

or maybe they screwed up.

yesterday getting my procedure done i heard the guy next to me tell me that his son suffered for 6 years with horrible whiplash from a rear end collision, because they got his xrays mixed up.

you don't think this can happen but it does.

they settled the insurance case for peanuts and sent him to a shrink who put him on all these awful meds.

finally the new xrays showed the real damage.
and that the xrays had been wrong the first time. that's what got me thinking...

thanks! i want a new MRI!

it's not possible that everything cleared up. i will talk to the dr. i am seeing him on the 20th. or at least his opinion. and a referral to a radiologist for a neutral opinion.