Amnesia - I think it was you that mentioned people are too shy from surgery. Long story short, my symptoms haven’t improved in another month. I’m not agonizing but I’m not living my life. It’s a process every day.

Saw a specialist at a well respected university and he said the pathology indicated surgical intervention. Hearing that at 34 years old was earth shaking for me - huge fear of doctors.

After I about passed out, kinda got my bearings and asked some tough questions about trying injections (done none yet). They said sure, buy you some time but won’t solve the pathology. I’m teetering between an injection and the microdisectomy. My #1 goal is back to pre injured condition - 180 Run miles a month and lots of bike.

This is the internet and I’m not dumb, but any insight you may provide on the options is helpful. Kinda looking for some comfort in taking the recommendations. In the end it is my decision but thinking it through is important to me.

Sorry to hear about that news. I have been there done that with a major injury that needed major surgery to fix, when I heard the news I almost passed out. It was a humbling experience thinking through how it must be for people getting diagnosed with cancer.

It is difficult to provide anything more than relatively general advice online, especially as I am not clear on what the underlying pathology is that you have. There is a spinal surgeon on the forum, I will need to try and find some recent posts from him, he may be better able to assist you.

However, in saying that....some general thoughts. When you have a longer standing pain issue like yours has now become, surgery is not often the miracle you are hoping for. The longer the pain receptors are stimulated and the injury prevails, the greater chance of there being re-wiring of these neural pathways. Suddenly taking away the stimulus for the pain does not always stop the pain from then being felt. So in your case, if you can accept the caveat that I don't know all of your pathology, taking the conservative route at the moment through injections (which can help settle down the nerves and inflammation etc) would be a very reasonable first option. There may well be something so significant that upfront surgery is indicated, but it may not be a night and day result if the symptoms have been going on for this long now.

Don't ever be afraid to question your doctors. Get a second opinion. See a specialist pain physician. A micro-discectomy is decent surgery but in the scheme of things not overly major!

Thanks for the well thought out reply. I guess there are some other reasons I may consider skipping the injection, related to time off about to be lost, etc., but it seems like a big step to me. The surgeon is certainly one of the best and seemed to know what he was talking about. I just want to get back to my normal activity. Only thing that was keeping me sane during COVID. I've read tons of articles on outcomes and what to expect. Just don't know how much to trust it all.

I'm 6 weeks and a few days post surgery. At the 6 week follow-up, the neurosurgeon said that I was doing well enough to warrant discharge from his care and back to my PCP. Still having some residual leg aches/pains but nothing like before. The surgeon said that the nerve was pretty flattened when he got in there and expected some time to heal. He gave me the "all clear" to try to work myself back into activity, with a heavy suggestion of swimming (hard to do with COVID) and biking. Suggested some light running, which I did yesterday and today with 5 min warm up walk, 5 minute 5mph jog (i know...), and 5 minute cool down. Feeling OK.

The hardest part of all of this was the anxiety post-surgery with the first few weeks wondering if it was successful, and then after about 3-4 weeks seeing my resting heart rate start to creep up from what I assume is a loss of fitness. Back to the grind!

glad to hear you are doing well! thank you for the update and good luck getting back on track