SPECT Bone Scan photo / video radiation levels report.

Radiation Levels at SPECT Bone Scan.

My small photo/video report about Bone SPECT Scan I did today. The examination was done in  Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital (Jerusalem). I was injected with radioactive isotope of Technetium-99m and after 3 hours my body was scanned with Gamma Camera. I have my DIY Geiger Counter in my bag and I did some radiation levels logs. Right after the injection my body produced about 20K-25K CPM (100uSv/h average) at 1 feet distance! The radiation level goes down after several hours, but even after 7 hours is stay hot.

You can find more technical info about Geiger Counter Hardware and Logger Software at:
http://www.rhelectronics.net/store/diy-geiger-counter-kit.html 

10 minutes after the injection. 

1 hour after the injection. Radiation level depend on the distance from my body. At 10 meters I registered about 90 CPM and at 30cm (1 feet) is very high (17K-20K CPM!) I drank a lot of water to allow the isotope to spread over the body. I mute the buzzer sound because the dosimeter "goes crazy" and may disturb the hospital workers and visitors.  

After several hours the scan was done all my dosimeters at home still detect high levels at 1 meter from me. I will attach logs files. You can open it to see the graphs with "Radiation Logger" Software or with any csv files editor. I used my phone to create this videos that's why it has low resolution quality.

The graph log screenshot: You can see the difference in CPM readings depend on the distance I marked. Download logs files

And some Hadassah Radiology Hospital photos:

Update 18/03/13:

30 hours  from the injection of the Technetium-99m and my body is still produce gamma radiation. Log file attached. During the day I felt weak and mild nausea.

Regards the Wikipedia all total radiation dose I received is about 10mSv (30mCi or 1000mrem or 500 chest X-Ray). Its probably may affect my blood count but to check this its necessary to do a blood test.

P.S. 

I asked the technicians who did the scan if the radiation dose from this medicine examination is high or low and they said it's not significant total dose, but it seem not to be like that (regards the CPM readings I got)! Its not seems to be low level also because all radiation detectors around goes crazy from 5 meters distance. Probably the technicians were instructed not to cause panic among patients. 

פרויקט חדש "מונה גייגר שלי"

פרויקט חדש וחינמי לדוברי עברית - "מונה גייגר שלי"

כולל הסברים, מעגל מודפס ותוכנה

www.mygeiger.org

Knee X-Ray with DRSB-1 Radiation Detector; Look inside the SBM-20 Geiger Tube

Got my knee x-ray pictures today. So this is me and DRSB-1 radiation detector under x-ray. Nice view of SBM-20 geiger tube internal structure (click the photo for enlarged version)

Fiestaware (Uranium Oxide) hot sample testing with DIY Geiger Counter, about 11000 CPM!!

Testing Fiesta Ware (Uranium Oxide) Hot samples with SBM20 and DIY Geiger Counter and getting 11820 CPM! The samples was purchased from sciencefare (search him on eBay  with query: "Geiger Counter Test Source"). He was kind enough to send them to me quickly and well packed.
Time to seriously think about where to get the lead sheets for all my samples. Rick (sciencefare) advised this store http://www.imagesco.com/geiger/lead-sheet.html but the shipping charges is high for outside USA. Any suggestions?

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Geiger Counter Dosimeter Nuclear Radiation Detector DIY Kit with Free Windows Logging Software released

The kit is released today. Now it available for purchase. I offer free shipping to Japan. For more technical details please visit product page:

Buy DIY Geiger Kit

The kit is supplied without Geiger Tube, TTL Module and without USB Cables. This items should be purchased separately. The PCB allow SBM-20 / STS-5 tube installation. Maybe J305B tube will also fit into the clips size, I still not received J305B tubes for test, but the PCB dimensions allow it regards J305 datasheet.

I also posted PIC16F628A source asm file, so if you are familiar with PIC's you can modify conversion factor,  alert threshold or calibrate it for your tube. The dafault filmware will be OK for most users, but if you need some special values please contact me before you buy.

Windows software can be downloaded for free. It monitor CPM readings and plot graphs. "Radiation Logger" is COM Terminal program that was written for dosimeters with UART communication. Connection settings are configurable. It was tested with my kit, but you can use it with other similar devices. 

Updates about new Geiger Counter Kit

Here is some updates about my new Geiger Counter kit. The pcb boards are ready and I'm going to test it soon. The boards are good quality thanks to my Chinese friend Qiumin! 

My colleague Dima works on Windows application for the dosimeter. The PC software is still in beta-testing, but at this point I'm happy with the results. It's receive CPM readings from the dosimeter, calculate radiation dose with any conversion factor you need. It can write logs files and do some graphs. Probably we'll add alarm threshold too. 

The dosimeter can communicate with PC through FTDI FT232, PL2303 or CP2102 virtual COM port USB IC's. Of course it will do through a native COM port also, but you'll need MAX232 TTL converter chip.

On the photo above I use FTDI module for communication with prototype.
I still cannot say when the DIY kit will be available for sale, because here is many work I need to complete. If you interested please follow my updates.