Amen to that!

Exhaust all your options with physical therapy, exercise, rest, Santeria, swinging cats, and applications of aromatic oils by naked virgins singing “The Ode to Joy” before letting them come anywhere near you with a knife.

I know quite a few people who have various back operations and better than half tell me they regret having it done. The success rate of back operations is abysmal if pain-fee functional mobility and ROM is included in the definition. A common theme is that after the chopping is done there is no guarantee it makes anything better and once done you can't have it undone or go back to a less drastic procedure. A couple had really major operations done and only some time later found out that smaller, less invasive and newer techniques were available.

One trick is to never have an CAT scan or MRI of your back done. Newer standards recommend avoiding them simply because most normal, relatively pain fee, backs have faults that show up on an MRI as as something a surgeon might be able to 'correct'. This is the 'foot in the door' for a sweet talking orthopedic surgeon to perfect his technique on you. And get paid for it. Success or failure he makes the same.