[Maria]

Welcome to the forum and sorry you needed to find this kind of information!
That being said~ when to have surgery is a very individualized situation. Some of us have had multiple surgeries and ended up badly because of this or it could have been we would have ended up badly anyway with no intervention.. rather difficult to say in hindsight.

My first surgery which was an open surgery (not microsurgery) with a discectomy of L5S1 and partial laminectomy actually turned out very good. It was just that there was also some problems already going on in the two discs above and the L4 disc later bulged and several years later I had a percutaneous discectomy (nicknamed bandaid surgery back then because it was not open surgery) failed miserably. I ended up worse off because of it.

What I do not know is how much of the failure was attributed to surgical skill and technique and how much of it was my own body's response to the surgery. What I do know is I had much more pain/probs after this for a long long time.

I was in my late 20's when I first injured my back, in my late 30's with first surgery and near 40 at the time of 2nd surgery. After many years (I'm almost 57) I'm feeling better tho doubt I could be out doing what you are by any means.

That doesn't mean you do or don't need surgery (comparing cases). What it does mean to me is that you should get more than one surgical opinion and if there's no impending reason (urgent/emergent) to have surgery think it over.

One thing I learned is not to make hasty decisions re spine surgery tho the other thing I learned is waiting too long (several years) can lead to natural degenerative changes that may not allow for some surgeries to still be an option (in my case ADR vs. fusion should I need more surgery in the future).

There are people that will respond to your post such as Keano and Mark that have a great deal more knowledge and information for you regarding surgeries, techniques, spine surgeons and so forth. Their input is definately desirable. Good luck and hope your pain isn't too bad tho to be considering surgery it must be!

** I wanted to edit to add that if you are able to do most everything you want without problems or limitations but there is one activity you love to do and you have some limitations with it having spine surgery doesn't guarantee that you will have success to the point that you can do that one activity you really love as much as you want to or like you were once able to. Be careful and truthful with yourself with regard to your limitations and reasons for surgery. And again, good luck with whatever you decide.