[Jim M2]

Greg,

I don't know how you continue to work at all. I know what you're saying, pain killers don't even take the edge off and it's even worse when you're aggravating it by lifting, stooping and the like. Someday when you look back you'll wonder "what the heck was I doing working?" It's self inflicted torture because the medical community, employers and people in general have no idea what we go through. We torture ourselves because of their expectations and the resulting rules of the game that don't allow us to stop because of loss of income, insurance and employment. Another reason we torture ourselves is because of our own self doubt about what we are experiencing. Our perception of ourselves is through others and they look at us and say things about us not looking injured, or suggest we ignore it as if it's a minor discomfort. I thought I was going insane until I stumbled across the forums.

If I were going through it again I would probably opt to tough it out. I was collapsing gracefully. By gracefully I mean my spine was stable and I would have probably auto-fused with loss of most pain. If you have a job working pipelines this isn't hardly an option. If I were to opt for surgery route I would go for L5S1 fusion. This is biased hindsight because I have had a bad experience with ADR.