[Cirobi]

While it stinks that you had to hunt us down on the internet, welcome to the group!

I've always found the "on a scale of 1-10, how much pain are you in" scale very annoying to work with. For those with a higher tolerance for pain, we can rate pain a lot lower when an issue is more severe, so I'm not sure it's always the best measure to consider.

It sounds like your L5/S1 is pretty much toast. Bone on bone for any level doesn't sound like such a great idea to push through in terms of putting off surgery, but everyone's situation is different.

I'd recommend thinking closely about quality of life as well as the possible outcomes were you to wait, which your physicians should be able to describe a range of potential outcomes. Quality of life is a big part because if the pain interferes with any aspect of your life, you should consider how much of an impact it's having as well as how quickly a slide into greater pain you're having. The reason I say this is because some folks can and do sit at a low but constant level of pain for many years and it's more of an annoyance than a major interference. On the other hand, some may find that their pain level is increasing rapidly with severe bursts of pain. As a personal example, I spent a good decade dealing with an annoyance level of pain with my low back issues. I avoided certain activities that irritated it and even continued to do some of those activities with extra care knowing I'd just have to chill for a few days until the pain settled down. Then, I had a sudden episode of pain at work simply from standing up after using the bathroom and the pain level never really settled down after that.

If quality of life isn't a major issue/concern yet, the range of potential outcomes of waiting from your physicians could be a good way to work through your decision. Like you said, you're not getting any younger and it is easier to heal the younger you are. This was why I jumped on the surgical option when my surgeon said my choices were to either decide between fusion and ADR for surgery or wait and let it get worse. Of course, I had already mentally prepared myself for the need of surgery someday thanks to an incident I had during high school running track time trials one year, so my surgeon saying that was just confirmation that I wasn't just being pessimistic or a cry baby about my back pain issues. Your physicians may say that you could go several years or longer at your current pain level, or they may say that what's level of the discs at levels being considered for surgery will deteriorate fairly quickly and you could end up with additional damage that may eliminate ADR as a surgical option.

You're definitely right though... whether or not to get surgery is a big decision whether you're prepared for the possibility or not. Hopefully some of these suggestions will help in terms of your thought process in deciding. Everyone's situation is different and everyone's ability to handle such things is different. Good luck in your decision making and of course, the folks here will do their best to help!

~Sara