The lab at our local hospital regularly sends specimens to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. All they required was an order from my doctor for a 24-hour urine test for Gadolinium. When I presented the order, the lab personnel gave me all the collection materials I needed. Once I had completed the 24-hour collection, I took it back to the hospital’s lab and they prepared the specimen that was shipped to Mayo Clinic. The results were sent to the hospital’s lab which then sent them to my primary care doctor.
So if you have any trouble getting the urine test through Mayo, contact the lab at one of your local hospitals. If the lab doesn’t already have a contract with Mayo, it is very easy for them to get one. Even if one hospital doesn’t have a contract with Mayo, it is very likely that another one does. Because most labs have never even heard about the urine test for Gadolinium, you will need to provide them with the Mayo test ID and test name.
Details about the 24-Hour Urine Test can be found here: http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/test-catalog/Overview/89301. Note that Mayo does all of its Gadolinium-related testing on Thursday mornings and the specimen will need to be there the day before, if not sooner, in order to have it ready for testing on Thursday of that same week. I did my 24-hour collection on a Sunday/Monday and I took it to the hospital’s lab early on Monday so that it could be sent overnight to Mayo.
You might be wondering what my result was. As I mentioned earlier, my test was performed almost exactly two years after my last contrast MRI. My Gadolinium level was 0.4 mcg/24-hour specimen which is at the top of Mayo’s reference range and not considered to be elevated by Mayo Clinic. But keep in mind, as time goes by, free Gadolinium will not be in circulation and available for excretion in your urine. If you retained Gadolinium, much of it will be deposited in your bones and soft tissues. That’s why provoked urine tests detect higher levels of Gadolinium than unprovoked tests – see Our Research for more detailed information about urine test results.
Since I have never done chelation therapy, I have not had a reason to do many urine tests. However, I decided to do another test about 18 months after the one done by Mayo. I wasn’t expecting the results to be any higher and they weren’t. But I wanted to know if my Gadolinium level had remained about the same. You see, in mid-2013, Mayo Clinic changed the description of their Gadolinium-related tests to include a disclaimer of sorts. It now said, “Elevated gadolinium (>0.5 mcg/specimen) observed in a 24-hour urine specimen collected >96 hours after administration of gadolinium-containing contrast media may indicate impaired ability to eliminate gadolinium or continued exposure, suggesting either reduced renal function or exposure to anthropogenic sources”.
An “anthropogenic source” means it is from a man-made source such as the Gadolinium from a Gadolinium-based Contrast Agent. The Gadolinium that has been eliminated in patients’ urine cannot be removed by the sewage treatment process and it has been detected in the water near metropolitan areas. If the 0.4 mcg of Gadolinium that was still in my urine 24-months after my last dose of contrast was supposedly from my drinking water, then I expected my Gadolinium level to be about the same as on my first test.
My second test was done by Genova Diagnostics and I ordered it online through HealthRemedies. My Gd level at 42-months post contrast was 0.238 mcg/24-hour specimen. Anything above 0.019 mcg is considered to be elevated by Genova; however, it is not considered to be elevated by Mayo Clinic. The fact that it had gone down since the Mayo test indicates to me that the 0.4 mcg of Gadolinium was probably not caused by Gadolinium in my drinking water.
You need a doctor’s order to have a test done by Genova Diagnostics. If your doctor doesn’t have an account with Genova, you can find a Wellness or Preventive Medicine doctor in your area that uses Genova by sending a request for information via the Genova website at https://www.gdx.net/patients/practitioner-directory. I received a list of doctors in my area via email.
Or you can get the test through HealthRemedies.com: http://healthremedies.com/comprehensive_urine_elements_profile_genova_diagnostics.html. A doctor affiliated with HealthRemedies sends the order to Genova Diagnostics. Genova will send you what you need to do the collection along with detailed instructions. You might want to read Duke’s post about “Ideas on Getting a Gadolinium Urine Test” for more information. You will receive a copy of the Genova test results via an email from someone at HeathRemedies.com.
Your cost for the tests will vary depending on which lab is used and how it was ordered. My insurance covered the cost of my test performed by Mayo Clinic.
When it comes to Gadolinium urine testing, there are two things to keep in mind. First, evaluation of urine Gadolinium levels is not used when making a diagnosis of NSF. Second, even with elevated urine levels of Gadolinium years after their last exposure, patients with normal kidney function are not given a Gadolinium-related diagnosis. So don’t have a urine test thinking it will help you get a diagnosis. Instead, I recommend having a urine test in order to provide proof that you retained Gadolinium. Remember, if it has been a long time since your last dose of contrast, your Gadolinium level may not be elevated on an unprovoked urine test, but I suggest doing an unprovoked 24-hour urine collection to establish your baseline. You will be able to compare your results to those published in our self-study papers.
At some point someone will “officially” make the connection between our unexplained chronic symptoms after our contrast MRIs and the Gadolinium we retained from the Gadolinium-based Contrast Agent we received. Unfortunately we are not there yet.
By Sharon Williams in Help, Testing on December 27, 2014 .
Is it possible to have retained gadolinium without it being detected in an unprovoked 24 hour urine? My husband has multiple symptoms of GDD after 2 mris with contrast in 2015-2016 but his 24 hour urine came back “less than detectable level”.
Absolutely. The urine test only tells how much is being excreted, not how much is sill in the body. If you read the Gadolinium Retention papers on the Research->Our Research page (https://gadoliniumtoxicity.com/research/ourresearch/) that we published you will see the graphs that show how high the levels would have been sooner after the contrast MRI. People who have done a provoked test subsequent to receiving an “undetectable” unprovoked test usually get a positive result.
I just had my 12th MRI with and without contrast because of a tumor. My vein blew up in my right arm and they injected me with 40 ML’s of Gadolinium and 20 ML’s in my left arm to finish off the MRI. My first question is, does Gadolinium Poisoning cause severe or chronic swelling in other extremities such as the legs? What other symptoms can it cause? Is there any way this metal can cause inflammation in the groin area for a female? My CRP, ESR, and white blood cell count have been elevated as well. Do you have any advice for me?
Sorry you had to find us. You can read all about the symptoms, treatments, etc. in the Help section of this site. Also, if you have not done so, we recommend that you the papers we have written about Gadolinium Retention and the associated Chronic Symptoms discussed on the Our Research page in the Research section of the site.
We do not provide individual advice or discuss individual cases here on this site because it is public. We suggest that you join the closed Support Group on Yahoo – MRI-Gadolinium Toxicity – https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MRI-Gadolinium-Toxicity/info . It is a closed group only for people who are gadolinium toxic. There are many people in the very active group who can share their experience with you.