MRI test immobilizes woman
Debbie Bochanski has struggled with chronic kidney disease for 15 years. Even receiving and then rejecting a transplant during that time. The 46-year-old mother of two is dependent on dialysis. She is now confined to a wheelchair, immobilized by a rare disease that has been linked to the dye that was injected into her veins as part of an MRI test in 2002. The disease, which seems to only afflict people with kidney disease, has just recently been identified and linked to the contrast agent. When she suffered a seizure in August 2002, she had two MRIs done. Within a month, the first signs appeared of what would eventually be diagnosed as NFD. The skin on her legs became tight and red and patchy. "When it was first diagnosed they thought it was scleroderma," Joe Bochanski recalled. "At first she could walk across the room," said Lisa Bellopede, 39, Debbie's sister. "Then she needed a walker. Then she needed a wheelchair." In 2003, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania diagnosed the problem as NFD, a rare and little known illness first identified in 1997, for which there was no known cause. "Until then, we didn't know what we were dealing with," Joe Bochanski said. It wouldn't be until late 2006 that the medical community finally settled on the dye used in MRI testing as the likely cause.
