Sorry about your friend, Orange, that sounds horrible. I had a rather similar experience not with an MRI but with a lumbar puncture. They told me I 'might have a headache' afterwards, but in fact I was in agonsing pain for the following two weeks, with tinitus, and had to lie flat for two weeks unable to read or move or do anything else. The hospital said it was nothing to do with them, but my GP visited and gave me huge doses of painkillers, by mouth and injection, that made no impression on the pain. After ten days they admitted grudgingly that there was something called 'severe lumbar puncture syndrome' that matched my symptoms, but before that they just suggested that I had caught a virus at the same time as having the procedure. I did recover eventually but the tinitus lasted another year on and off.

I feel very concerned that patients' experiences like mine and your friend's are not recorded properly and taken into account when various procedures are described as 'safe' - I wonder if these ratings are based on relatively limited survey results whereas in fact people respond to drugs and procedures in a variety of ways, some of them very badly. I know several people who have had lumbar punctures with no after effects but that was no consolation to me.

It is up to you of course, but in your position I would avoid the contrast injection like plague!