Silverlady--

My mri and xray reports are similar to yours, inasmuch as the xrays are read with great detail to findings in bone, while the mri emphasizes the cord, disks, and nerves. I'm not sure, but I think the reason for this might be that the Xray ONLY sees the bone, and that's what the radiologist is going to focus on in the report. The MRIs are usually done to see if there is herniated disk or pressure on a nerve root, and that's what the radiologists pay attention to there. I googled MRI vs CT (CT uses regular xrays and MRI vs XRAY didn't get results) and, sure enough, CT is used for bone and MRI for soft tissue as well as bone. For some things, CT is preferred (looking at the sinuses, for instance).

Why were regular xrays done on you? Usually, they aren't done much anymore, except maybe to look for fractures. Seems to me that most people I know either get CT scans or MRIs. My doctors do regular xrays of my spine to look for slippage of one vertebrae over the other--the spondylolithesis that was the probably RESULT of arthritis, and CAUSE of the spinal cyst which was the probable cause of much of my pn.

I know I've asked before, but pardon, I don't remember the answer---have you had bending xrays?