Hi Karen: We don't have "open" MRI here. At least it hasn't been offered and I have heard no one talk about it. I'm not too worried about the claustrophobic feeling. I don't usually have a problem like that. I am worried about the hardness of the table. I just recently had an xray of the sacroiliac joints and that was just a few minutes on the hard table and I couldn't stand it. I mentioned to the woman on the phone about the problem and she didn't suggest pillows. Was the MRI of your back? Mine is, maybe the knees can't be bent like that when they are looking at the lower spine. When I told her I worried about the hardness of the table making it hard for me not to wiggle she suggested premedication. She didn't act like it was an unusual problem. It's at 9 pm at night-that should be better than the am. I had a root canal done before my first lap and about 15 minutes into the root canal my bladder felt like it was going to burst and this always causes pain in my problem area. The hour long root canal was torture because of this. Chris S.