@sleeplessinmissouri You might want to keep notes on your condition. A work comp situation can be a dance of the assigned medical specialists trying to avoid having the company pay the bills. Spine surgery is very expensive and some companies are self funded, so that comes out of company profits. Work comp is also more than just paying the bills for medical treatment. It pays lost wages, and if you file a case with your state's board, there would be an award for the "loss of use" or damage. There are tricks to that as well, so getting an injury attorney can help facilitate this. The company will be consulting their own attorneys in all the responses they make to you. You can also get caught between your health insurance that won't pay because it's work related, and the work comp process that doesn't want to pay either. You do have to cooperate, but you have the right to choose your own doctor or surgeon instead of a doctor assigned by the company. You certainly don't want a surgeon who does all kinds of orthopedic surgeries instead of just focusing on spine surgery.

I agree with you not to rush into surgery, and that should always be the last resort. If your disc is causing foraminal narrowing, it is likely ruptured and spilled the jelly like nucleus inside into that space. That causes inflammation and prompts arthritic changes and bone growth there that will further impinge and put pressure on the nerves. It isn't a disc slipping out where you can push it back in, it has a tear in the fibrous outer covering. Get copies of all the medical records and imaging in case you want to take that to another doctor that you choose. You need to get a sense of how fast that can progress and when surgery may be indicated. Sometimes, they do a procedure to just clean up the extruded portion and leave the damaged disc in place. It can cause the same problem later when more disc jelly gets squished out.

44 is pretty young to start with spine issues. There may also be other bulging discs that will have issues years into the future. I had a whiplash and bulging disc that took about 20 years before it herniated, but once that happened, there were bone spurs that grew and pressed into my spinal cord. The only way to improve that was surgery. This location of L5S1 is also bearing almost all of your body weight, and that does make surgery at this end of the spine a more difficult recovery. When you do get a consult with a spine specialist, make sure you have a list of questions.

Will you share your progress as you move along on this journey? Good luck with your therapy.