@bazzinga1234 I'm sorry you're going through this. Sometimes it is hard to know what to do. You do have to decide which opinions matter to you from your specialists. It's true that surgery can make you worse, but surgery can also help a lot, and there often are different procedures to solve a problem and one may be more of a benefit to your condition than another. It's always a benefit vs risk decision. My cousin who is an 80 year old man had lumbar spinal stenosis and he was helped a lot by a laminectomy. That essentially is like raising the roof on your home and building an upstairs space. They don't remove a disc, but the spinal cord has more room to exist in. The stenosis that happens in the foramen where the nerve roots exit the spinal cord can also be operated on without disturbing the spinal cord or any discs. They can open up the space and enlarge it to give room for the nerves to pass through there.

It helps to get several opinions from spine specialists who are either neurosurgeons or orthopedic spine surgeons. They will know what their success rates are for patients in your age group and with other pre-existing conditions. It will come down to your decision of if you want to do spine surgery or not if you have an offer. I had to make this decision, and the surgeon doesn't guarantee to reduce pain. They can't promise that because they don't know if nerve damage has occurred that causes pain. They do promise to try to improve function like opening space around nerves that are compressed. My cousin had no pain after 2 weeks after the laminectomy, and he was up and around with normal activities except for golf because of the twisting involved.

You can always see a spine specialist, and that will not obligate you to have surgery, but you will have information. If you are pressured for surgery, see another specialist. I personally don't trust a surgeon who is pressuring me. A surgeon can express concern if it is an urgent situation and that is different and they can explain the reason why. I did walk away from a surgeon who was high pressure but wouldn't take the time to answer my questions. Get as many different opinions from surgeons as you need to make a decision if you want to consider surgery.