I have had MRI's of my neck (cervical) and my lower back (lumbar) regions, but I am also having lots of pain in my mid-back (thoracic.) It was determined that I have degenerative disc disease in my neck and osteoarthritis in my lower back. I kept asking about an MRI for my mid-back, and finally one orthopedist said that they usually don't do those because the ribs are in the way and the MRI's are hard to read. But I keep wondering what might be happening in the middle. How do doctors figure that out? I got the idea that they rarely even do surgery in that area because of having to work around the ribs. Anybody have experience with this?

They do MRI in the t-spine I have problems with mine and they do not like to do surgery until they have to due lost of use in limbs

I've had an upper T spine & C spine MRI.
I got copies of mine & I could see the vertebra just fine. No ribs were in the way. So I'm really confused about what your ortho said.

I thought they can set the machine to image whatever depth or level they want so the rib issue mentioned by your ortho isn't an issue....

Is an ortho also spine specialist ??
Is there such a thing??

Or do they focus mainly on arms, legs , joints etc... I'm not sure how or if there is an actual spine specialist or if some orthos prefer to focus on spine vs joints & extremities.

with DDD & such you might be better off with finding someone more specialized.

About what level /area of your t spine is your pain located?

You need t- spine specialist one that does that area not all do the t-spine

Thanks for your responses. Some of my pain is down between my shoulder blades and then right down my spine in the mid back. Yeah, I didn't understand the reluctance either. I guess mine were just regular orthopedists...

One did emg's of my arms and legs and said that do also have carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists. But I have fibromyalgia and she said she thought some of my pain was coming from that. I am not in excruciating pain right now in the thoracic area.. I am just surprised that they didn't go ahead and do the whole spine. If my pain gets much worse, then I'll definitely start checking into seeing about getting someone who specializes in the thoracic area--or at least who is willing to do an MRI there!