@healthy10 Hello and I want to give you a warm welcome to Connect. I am a Mayo spine surgery patient and I had cervical stenosis because of a herniated C5/C6 disc that had collapsed into my spinal cord causing bone spurs to grow there too and push into my spinal cord.

The question that I would ask you is are you willing to accept that you can permanently lose the ability to do the outdoor things that you love because of spinal cord damage? Also keep in mind, that if there is permanent damage to the spinal cord, and depending on where this happens, it also can affect lung function if it damages the path way to the Phrenic nerve which exits the spinal cord around C3, and that would compromise your lung function. I have known 2 people who had compromised lungs from a spinal cord injury and both died too soon because of failing lungs, one in a short 3 to 4 years from the time of the accident. When you can't move the diaphragm properly, the lungs don't inflate and move properly. They accumulate phlegm and it sets up an environment for repeated pneumonia. Your heart will have to work harder because the lungs are not doing their job to gather enough oxygen.

If you become paralyzed, that will add to the problems. Your best chance to correct this in now... as soon as possible. You are already reporting symptoms of neuropathy and/or myelopathy. If you have stenosis impacting your spinal cord, the best you can do on your own is try to maintain proper spinal alignment, but that will not correct stenosis caused by bone spurs, herniated discs or instability that put pressure on the cord. If your vertebrae are moving past each other because the disc is not strong enough to stop it, that adds further risk to damaging your spinal cord, and at some point that damage becomes permanent and you loose function. A common function lost because of spinal cord damage is the voluntary control of the bladder and bowels. Only a spine surgeon can fix this damage to some degree, depending on how far it is advanced. Of course there is always a compromise with surgery, and surgeons try to prevent further damage. I hope by now, you are ready to dial and ask a surgeon for help. You have 4 professional opinions all in agreement. As patients we want to bargain our way out of a predicament like this, and it just can't be done without the help of a skilled surgeon. Yes, I was afraid of surgery, but I was more afraid of being permanently disabled, and I had a chance to change my life.

I was there too and had to make a choice. I had trained for several years to be a professional artist and I had achieved recognition in national competitions, but early on in my career, I suffered a whiplash in a traffic accident. Adding about 18 years of aging to that condition caused a bulging disc to rupture and I all had to do for the disc to break was to turn my head because it was weakened. An injury to a disc causes small cracks in the fibrous outer layer. Normal aging causes discs to loose some moisture and the cracks can open up releasing the jelly like nucleus inside. For me this spine problem came on slowly and I had an unusual presentation of symptoms that made several surgeons not want to help me as I got worse for 2 years. I was loosing the ability to control my arms and do my art work which is what I love doing the most. I needed to be able to walk and use a camera to gather material for paintings and to be strong enough with the endurance to do that. I needed the accuracy and manual dexterity to control my brushes. Then I came to Mayo for help. A wonderful surgeon gave me my life back, and the ability to control my arms again. So what was the first thing I did when I was recovered enough to paint again? The answer can be found in the following story.
https://sharing.mayoclinic.org/2019/01/09/using-the-art-of-medicine-to-overcome-fear-of-surgery/
Aging will cause further deterioration. You have one chance to make the right choice and the sooner you commit to this journey, the better it will be. Not everyone gets to choose if they will become disabled or not. What will your choice be? Can I be of further help in understanding the process and facing the fear?