I’m sorry for your unfortunate diagnosis. I too am a dishie. When you say your background is in open-heart, do you mean professionally? Or personally? I ask because I have had open heart surgery. And part of me wonders if the dish or the hyperparathyroidism that I had , may have caused mu heart valve calcification and having to have ascending aorta repair with graft. My arteries were clear so I did not have to have any bypass. My cardiovascular surgeon told me that when he saw my aorta, he knew I had some kind of connective tissue disorder. Dish is considered a connective tissue disorder. I have a couple bone spurs formations off the spine and many bone spurs up and down the spine. and I have bulging disc toward the spine. I have some stenosis. I currently am a patient of pain management. I have been seen by a spine specialist who doesn’t feel at this point I need surgery yet. Injections at pain management are controlling some things but not 100%. Certain level of pain. The problem with the steroids is you have to worry about bone degradation. I am due for a DEXA scan anyway. I think I had this very young. I had ortho tell me at 40 that my spine looked like that of somebody much older. You may have to have a variety of practitioners helping you. I am actually starting to think about trying acupuncture. Do what you can to Research and my thoughts and prayers are with you.