CT scan safety

I too was/am paranoid about how often I'm getting x-rays and CT scans—especially since I'm relatively young and will need many more scans throughout my lifetime. The last time I questioned my respiratory nurse who works closely with my doctor, she told me that a CT scan is 20x the radiation of a chest x-ray, however the article I link to below from Harvard says a CT chest scan is more like 70x the amount of a chest x-ray.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/cancer/radiation-risk-from-medical-imaging
This article from MSK (Memorial Sloan Kettering) is also very helpful and puts it in perspective.
https://www.mskcc.org/news/scan-safety-radiation-reality-check#:~:text=If%20the%20scans%20are%20justified,time%20interval%20required%20between%20scans.

there is a lower radiation CT scan available for lung issues. You can ask your Dr about it. I had one and although it does not show as much as the regular it was enough to tell my Pulmo what he needed to know. It also took much less time than the regular one.

@irenea8 Thanks so much, Irene. That’s very helpful info. I’ll ask about this when I am scheduled to have my next chest CT scan in January. I will say, it seems they are pretty quick so perhaps they’re using that lower dose version but I’m going to request details.

I just had a chest and abdomen CT last month because I had pneumonia and they still want me to get another one in Jan to evaluate my bronchiectasis so it does stress me out slightly.

My second CT Chest scan was ordered as “low dose”. When I scheduled the CT, I confirmed “low dose” with the scheduler and when I got on the table, I confirmed with the tech “low dose”. It was very quick, compared to my first (high resolution) but even my first was fairly short in duration. I don’t know the science on low dose versus high resolution, haven’t gotten to that piece of the puzzle yet, but have had so much testing in the last few months I will take every little bit less radiation.

An interesting article on the protective effect of lemon balm with regard to radiation exposure.

Forgot to include the article! Here it is:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20858648/