@bazzinga1234 I understand your frustration with pain and the reluctance for surgery. Spine surgery does help a a lot of people, and I am one of those. I had significant pain all over my body from cervical spinal stenosis, and decompression surgery took away all of that crazy pain. It took 2 years of going to surgeons with my unusual symptoms before I came to Mayo and got help. I was loosing the ability to control my arms, and being an artist, that was becoming a disability that would affect my ability to paint. Having spine surgery and some rehab gave me back that ability and I will be forever grateful to my surgeon.

Spinal stenosis and neuropathy are often the result of injuries and added wear and tear of aging. Surgery is a choice that hopefully improves quality of life although there are compromises and choices to be made. Not everyone is a surgical candidate and not everyone would choose surgery if it was offered. I do know from my personal experience that fear increases pain a lot and can escalate pain. These are some of the lessons I learned on my journey, and I had to learn to talk myself out of an angry reaction to pain that was beyond my control so I could stay calm in spite of the pain. Mayo does have a program for understanding and lowering the emotional response to pain. It was mentioned to me at the time of my surgical consult. If it is fear holding you back, there are ways to get past fear. I never thought I could do it, but I did.

My choice was either loose my ability to paint and my artistic talent or face my fear and do the surgery. Choosing surgery also meant a commitment to the physical rehab to be active again. Since my spine surgery, I broke my ankle and I still have trouble with it. If I don't walk enough, I get stiffness in my leg and hips, my pelvis can shift out of alignment, and very recently that has caused sciatic pain and tingling in my feet. I have a bulging lumbar disc. Doing the stretching I learned in therapy and strengthening some muscles to help hold my pelvis in a better position helped, and I was able to fix that sciatic pain. I can also tell you that the pain from breaking my ankle and the disability that goes with it was far greater than my experience of spine surgery and for a much longer period of time.

Had you seen this response I wrote to you in another discussion?
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/comment/800658/
There is a lot of medical research going on, and a surgeon at Mayo has even had some success with regenerative medicine for a spinal cord injury patient who can now walk again because of his stem cell research. Research takes time, and repeated methods to try to reproduce results. Breakthroughs come after years of study and time invested in the goal.