Susie - best way to check for inflammation is to have a nuclear bone scan. Inflammation shows up like a lit beacon.
MRI Saggital STIR is the best at showing up the rest. X-Rays will show up bone damage but not the finesse of damage. Also, X-Rays can lead to over radiation - have posted here before. Doctors 'now' are all being told to be careful of over exposing patients. (Have sent in quite a number of articles on this very aspect of X-Rays and CT scans.) Also, radiation exposure is accumulative. And just ONE CT scan is equivalent to 120 X-Rays and a High resolution scan is said to be the equivalent to 180 X-Rays - and that one scan is one single high level dose of radiation!
Better by far to go for the
MRI Saggital STIR scan. No radiation exposure and much better pictures.
BTW in the main, all the illustrations in the links I sent through earlier are MRI Saggital STIR scans.
