In order to get the most out of your consultation with me, it is always best that I have a copy of your latest MRI/CAT scan disk--although we can certainly proceed without any scans and just use a radiologist's report or no report at all if you so desire. Probably, 85% of the patients I consult with, present me with a copy of their latest MRI/CAT scan disk.

Why do I want to see your images? Because I've found over the years that some radiologists get a little lazy and don't write everything down that is pertinent (like HIZ signs, annular tear indications, small this protrusions, retrolistheses etc). These little details can sometimes very important pieces of the puzzle of pain. So, it's best that I get to see just what is going on with the discs and facets. *note: I do not read these MRI for pathology like Cancer and vascular problems etc--I'll leave that important function to the trained radiologist.

The following tutorial is a very basic description of how you can get me a copy of your MRI disk without using the postal service (a.k.a., snail mail). In a nutshell, all you are doing is compressing all of the files on your disk and then uploading them to a server (my tutorial will use SendThisFile, but really you can use any server you like like Rapidshare or MediaFire).

Once your MRI is uploaded, you can e-mail me your user name and password, and then I can go and retrieve the images. Or, if you choose to use the pay account, the service will provide you with a link that you can e-mail me, so I can then download your disk for my review--this way you don't have to give me your password.

So here is a rough tutorial of how to use a server called SendThisFile. It can be reached and investigated at this web address: www.sendthisfile.com (by the way, I have absolutely no financial interest or any involvment in this server company – is just happens to be one that I have used for some time. Although the free account has its flaws (sometimes it gets so busy, your upload times out and you have to start over later in the day when it is less busy), it seems to be quite secure and works pretty good, so let's get started with the tutorial:

The first thing you need to do is put your MRI disc into your computer. After doing this, what usually happens is one of two things:

#1) in Windows, a program called "autoplay" will pop up a message asking about what you want to do with the program on the disc you have just put in. [The picture to the left is what the message looks like].

All you need to do is double-click the little picture of a folder that says "open folder to view files." [when I say double-click or select, I mean rapidly click the left mouse buttons two times]

note: If the MRI program starts running and trying to load itself, stop it, for we don't want that– remember we are only trying to copy the files from your disk, not run the program..

The below picture (figure #2) is what you will get after clicking the "Open Folder to View Files."

There they are! those five files (four under the heading "files currently on disk" and one under the heading "files ready to be written to disk"--the ones circled in black) are what we want to copy into a single "compressed file."

But before I tell you what to do with the files, let's explore what else could happen when you stick that disk in:

#2) what happens if Auto Play didn't open?

Then we go to Plan-B.

See the below picture (picture #3) to continue.

Plan-B: Hunt for the files through my computer:

In order to find those needed files from that MRI disk, simply click the start button, (this is located in the lower left-hand corner of your screen) then click "computer," which is seen there on the left in picture #3--the big red arrow is pointing at it. [this used to be called "my computer" on older versions of Windows software].

After you click it, this is what you get (see below picture).

Computer is a program that shows you all the different hard drives, devices ( like a thumb drive) and removable storage devices ( like a CD drive or DVD drive).

All you have to do now is locate the drive that contains the DVD (often times it is called D:\).

In my case, the MRI disk actually put an icon showing me where it was located [note the red arrow on picture #4].

The next thing to do is right-click on that high-lighted D: drive.

After you do that, you get the next image:

By right clicking on the D:\ dirve, you get a menu of things you can do as seen to the left.

All you have to do is double-click on the open button.

After you double-click on the open button, you will see the same files that we see in picture #2--I've included that picture again below.

.

There they are! the files we are looking for--all five of them--figure #2

The next order of business is to "compress" these files, which prepares them for their journey to the server (we are going to use a service called www.filesonic.com – although you can use any server you want, as longer as I get a link to download them.

Here we go: let's highlight those files:

1) Select the top file (the word "select" means that you click on that word one time with the left mouse), which is called DICOM in order to high-light it.

2) The Shift / End Trick: in order to highlight all the files on the disk, you will first hold the "shift" button down on the keyboard. as you keep holding down the shift button, now, simultaneously, you are going to press down the "End" button on the keyboard. BAM! ALL THE FILES ARE HIGHLIGHTED!

Then proceed as before (see the 5th slide).

Now, as noted on the left, all our files are high-lighted.

Here's the next step:

1) right click anywhere on the high-lighted blue and that will bring up another menu (see the next image):

2) Next "hover" the pointer of your mouse over "Send to" area of the menu [when I say "hover" that means do not click anything – all you need to do is move your pointer/arrow over it].

By hovering over the "send to" area, this will open up yet another menu which contains our ultimate goal in this initial step: to bring up a command that will compress/zip all these folders into one.

3) double click that compressed (zipped) folder button--which I have brought your attention by placing a large red arrow. By doing this we will bring up the next image:

Simply click yes. this is the moment we have been waiting for: we are now converting all those files on your MRI disk into one compressed file – suitable for transport to cyberspace. Also note that we are making this compressed file on the desktop. [unfortunately, with this method there is no way to compress the files to any other location--only the desktop.]

[why did we get this error? Because we obviously cannot create a compressed file on a DVD-- that is why this warning came up].

After clicking "yes," you will see this image on the left.

after this compressing process is complete, then all you have to do is go to your desktop and look for the compressed file. Windows 7 names this file Autorun.zip, and this is the file that we are going to be uploading to the server.

Here is a picture of the Autorun.zip file on my desktop.

Again, this is the file that you will upload to www.SendThisFile.com (or any other server if you know how to).

Let's move on to the tutorial on how to use www.filesonic.com