I am an 80 year old female. I had tight, full, hurting feeling all across my lower belly. (I'd gotten a prescription for pain for another problem - Tylenol 3 - which contains codeine.) Reading the prescription papers, I see that it is constipating, which confirmed my belief it was probably extreme constipation. I called my insurance nurse, expecting her to say to get an enema, but she said to get to the hospital, have them take a picture because it could be something else. I couldn't walk to the car as pain was so intense in walking, so we called an ambulance. CAT scans showed burst appendix, peritonitis, gangrene. Surgeons cleaned the poisons out. I spent a week in ICU. Now I'm well again.

I had a cold and cough for about a month. After seeking medical attention and an X-ray, the doctor ordered a CT scan to be taken of my chest. I was led to believe that I had pneumonia. The CT scan showed an oval-shaped, soft tissue mass in the right upper lobe of my lung. At that time, I was told that I had lung cancer. A biopsy was performed and concluded that it was cancer. I then had a PET scan to see if the cancer had spread to any other areas of my body. The oval-shaped mass was removed in January of 2008. Because of the early detection found by the CT scan and the removal of the mass, I am now cancer-free. My cancer was Stage 1, which meant I did not have to have chemo or radiation treatments. Now, I have a CT scan done every three months. It has almost been a year, and the CT scan is responsible for the early detection.

I have had a cough since December 2008, and I have been to several doctors. One told me my chest X-ray looked like I have sarcoidosis. Then another one told me that my trachea was damaged when I had bronchitis, which I never knew I had. So, in August, I decided to try someone out of town because I was still coughing and none of the meds worked. I did the PFT test and the doctor looked at my chest X-ray and gave me a CT scan. He called me back the next day and told me I had asthma, and I never knew I had it.

I have stage IV non-smoker's lung cancer. I am going through chemo and have a CAT scan every six months. The contrast was spilled on my pants and ruined them, leaving three large spots and smaller ones that ate into my pants. If it did that to my pants, what did it do to my insides? Drink lots of water after a CAT scan to remove the dyes from your system. I am a vegan. I eat organic veggies, take supplements, eat mushrooms, tumeric, vitamin C, D, folic acid and drink lots of green tea. Keep your immune system up.

I recently had a CT scan because my doctor thought I had a kidney stone. His nurse suggested maybe it was an ovarian cyst. When I arrived to get my CT scan, I was just curious to see how big my kidney stone was. The CT scan showed I had diverticulitis. That turned my life (and my diet) upside down. I was so thankful my doctor ordered the CT scan so I can get on with my recovery.

I had several CAT scans that helped diagnose my diverticulitis. I went to the emergency room in bad pain and found that I had a perforation in my colon. I was immediately put in the hospital and had several others to see if the heavy antibiotics they gave me were helping to heal the perforation. Thank God they helped heal it. I am having another CT scan again soon as I'm having symptoms again. It's definitely a good thing to have when in doubt.