It's nice to read all the mild this and mild that, but you've got severe foraminal stenosis noted at 2 levels and (lucky you) on both sides.
It's also nice that you are dealing with a surgeon who does not want to just jump in and start cutting. With the severe stenosis and (I assume) symptoms that map out to the pathology noted, it's hard to imagine that you'll be able to avoid surgery... but you never know, and with spine surgery, less is better.
Do you have lumbar and thoracic MRI?
You've not noted anything more than mild central canal stenosis. As I understand it, myelopathy does not manifest itself as weird sensations and burning pain.... I'd be more concerned if you were taking about missing reflexes, significant strength loss, gait disturbance; bowel, bladder or sexual dysfunction, etc... (I hope the doctors will still want to rule out other spine problems that may be affecting your hips and legs.)
With the main problem being foraminal stenosis (?) and if the related symptoms are of primary concern, you might ask if you are a candidate for a foraminotomy (or other decompression surgery) instead of jumping straight to fusion or ADR. If you do something like that, I'd suggest that you do it with an experienced ADR surgeon so he/she will have an eye towards that possibility. You don't want to burn the ADR bridge with too aggressive a decompression surgery.
Obviously, all this comes with the usual, "I'm not a doctor" qualifiers... this is just to provide some ideas for discussion.
Mark
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