MRI is the best

A good doctor should be able to see it with a regular x-ray if there is fusion. Or a MRI allows to assess the soft tissue and bone marrow involvement in case of inflammation.

Bone marrow stem cell transplant therapy has recently been approved by the FDA for treatment of all that. I have all those diagnoses too and a couple more. I'm 58 and waiting for my surgeon's office to call for a date to begin my stem cell therapies. You might look into it. In the neck, in particular, the prognosis is better than fusion. Let's hope so, my only alternative is a 6 level (whole neck) fusion.

Hey Lindsay,
There is a special kind of MRI that they use for implants depending on what kind of implant you got. Check on back of your card. I have a defibrillator from Biotronik and had a MRI done 3 weeks ago.

MRI is the best for diagnosis but I cannot have an MRI because of an implant so mine was diagnosed by X-ray.