Mike,
Thank you for sharing your journey here. This is the combo of spine and NP symptoms that I've been trying to connect with. I suspect the 'industry' has a lot to learn in this realm as well. So many questions; Does the surgery sometimes cause NP, is there a metabolic issue that is contributing to both NP and stenosis or other spine issues? I think these are issues that really need to be looked at carefully.
What's so helpful about your story is that it shows that someone else who is having PN and stenosis can get a lot of relief from dealing with the stenosis! I'm 58 and like you I too have made a degree of peace with some of these issues being lifelong. Clearly we can persevere and search for new solutions at the same time. Currently I can walk but struggle with long distances and having a lot of trouble sitting, driving and standing.
Like you I went to an orthopedic spinal specialist but mine has stated that surgery is off the table for me. This makes me curious about the degree to which your stenosis and other issues were visible on whatever systems they used to discover them? They're saying that my stenosis and 'slippage' are mild enough that they don't want to pursue surgery. I'm not wanting to rush into anything but at the same time I do think there are these clusters of 'dogma' in the various medical fields that have enormous impact on how we're treated. For four years my PT has been having me do some stretches and a back bend that I'm now thinking has potentially been aggravating my nerves more. Very few docs seem to be able to talk about both PN and orthopedic issues at the same time with any degree of confidence. Please do share more about the degree of damage that your orthopedic images showed?--if you want to of course.
Thank you!
Darren