I am not a doctor.
I think you have asked a few questions about CT scans. Everything I have read says scans of the abodomen and pelvis does deliver quite a bit of radiation relative to scans of other areas of the body. One abdomen being like 5 head scans. A simple xray is nothing like getting CT scans. Scans are like multiple xrays at once. An xray might have the equivalent of 5 days of normal background radiation delivered in that two seconds (depending on the part of the body and the xray) while a CT scan can be 8 months to 5 years of background radiation in those 20 seconds (it varies depending on part of the body and how the machine is set, etc.).
Some people naturally have more exposure than others in every day life. Pilots have a lot of exposure compared to the average population being closer to the sun for many more hours.
Doctors I speak to vary from totally dismissing my concerns of radiation exposure by xray and scan, to other doctors saying that the concern is warranted. One doctor said to me yesterday when I told him how upset I was about having my head to pelvis scanned in the ER after an accident that the “doctors were just being lazy. You never want a CT scan unless you really need it.” He is a neurosurgeon. Another friend who is head of brain tumour research at the facility he works was not happy about all my scans either, but he said not to be concerned at this point. My girlfriend in the accident had a CT scan in the ER where they found a 5 inch skull fracture, but then didn’t do an MRI where they would have found her subdural hemotoma most likely. Instead they wound up doing 5 CT scans of her head over a two week stay, only finding her brain bleed while she had already been hospitalized for 5 days. None of us, including the neuro doctors we know here in town can understand why the hpspital doctors did not do the MRI in the hospital. I only tell you this, because sometimes there are other options, but doctors just do what they always do.
Your situation is different than the ER and hospital experience though. You have a diagnosis that maybe the risk of radiation exposure from scans is worth finding something concerning in your body in an early stage? I don’t know enough about your condition. If they do the scans to determine your treatment, it seems they probably are necessary, but certainly you can get another opinion, or specifically ask how your treatment will be different if your scans are different? Sometimes doctors do tests just to know what is going on, but the treatment stays the same. If your treatment would stay the same, then why is the test necessary? If your treatment does change then it makes sense to scan I would think.
If I were you I definitely would get a second opinion of the necessity, I would ask if MRI can be effective in diagnosis as well (MRI does not have radiation). MRI does not see everything that CT scans can detect and vice versa, but there is some crossover. Maybe if you ask about the necessity you will get a more informative response than just voicing your fear about the scans. I find doctors who already in their mind have decided a test is not harmful, once they hear a patient worry or disagree with that, the doctor kind of shuts down and just thinks you are reading too much crap on the internet and being a pain. Sucks but true. Although, in my experience oncologists tend to be much better with their patients in than other specialities in discussing concerns.
Can you speak directly to a radiologist? They usually know the information better about radiation and scans better than the average doctor.
You can’t do anything about the scans you have had, but you can try to control what scans you have in the future. Not that you should just refuse them, but be given all the information you need to decide if one is necessary at that time or not.
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