It really depends on the individual, their age and their physical make up. Surgeries should not be put off if there are certain circumstances present i.e. the pain begins to limit one’s activity level and so muscles in the vicinity deteriorate. Once that deterioration occurs with older individuals their muscle strength cannot be restored; in addition, if cushioning between the joints is eroded too much during the degeneration both the mechanics of the body are thrown off, causing consequence pain and damage and nerves become impinged. If nerves become impinged and stop serving extremities, other consequential damage like neuropathy and radiculopathy occur. I am a case in point. My lower lumbar surgery happened years too late because I was at a neurosurgeon and not at an orthopedic surgeon. The neurosurgeon would’ve not recommended surgery until I was incontinent and my feet experience foot drop. He offered me nothing so I said I would go home and take the opioids which were fine. Then he sent me to an orthopedic surgeon which was shocked when he found my discs had fallen out completely, and my vertebrae’s had grafted together. I did my own laminectomy infusion, lol! In that process, as I stated above all the other things I suffered, which could not be repaired even with the tremendously successful lumbar surgery, my orthopedic surgeon and his team did for me. Do not wait if you have pain every day and the nerves are involved and you experience weakness. If those can be attended to, then surgery should not be delayed. @heyjoe415 is an overachiever, and he is able to delay his surgeries by extra extraordinary amounts of exercise. But their reaches a point where exercise can also be damaging as he stated. We are all ever-aging and we have to accept some inevitable abilities about that. I definitely am guilty of not accepting my aging and degenerative condition.. I do believe that pain every day is unacceptable and I work at offsetting that every day pain with every tool in my toolbox. I also work with my surgeon 2 to 4 times a year to see where I am in process. I have to be creative. My surgeon told me last visit that any surgery he does from here on out. I’m only going to recover 80% out of 100 after the surgery. That means surgeries have to be judiciously selected. One’s goals for their geriatric years have to be considered. Adjustments to goals with the body deteriorating (degenerating) before my eyes also causes me to reevaluate. I hope Joe follows his doctors orders and since I’ve had both hips replaced, I do know the second one we are compromised and not as strong or in the same condition as when we had the first. That is quite quite an eye-opener. On my first hip replacement I considered the home exercise before and after for babies, I was shocked when the same exercises were presented for my second hip surgery two years later– – they were CHALLENGING! That is why joe dislocated his hip. His muscles weren’t strong enough to hold the hip in place and he defined doctors orders (bad boy, bad boy!) Don’t worry, Joe you will be able to do those exercises again. You just have to wait for the healing and establish that goal And work with your team to monitor a safe path for you to get there. We also have to realize that we might’ve been hyper mobile in our joints before surgery and with full joint replacements we might not be as hyper mobile in the way they put us back together. That is something to have a conversation with your surgeon about. thank you, Joe for encouraging me to get back into a more aggressive exercise routine after a month and a half. I’m really feeling the benefits of less neuropathy and radiculopathy in a natural way without Cortizone injections and surgeries. I hope you will heal quickly!