Can this level of stenosis resolve without surgery?
I have had back pain and sciatic pain for over 1 year. I had a CT one year ago which showed a bulge and nerve impingement, but I was only recently able to get an MRI to show more details (which show L4/L5 herniation and severe spinal stenosis in that area). I have back pain when I am standing or on extension at 8/10, sitting 5/10 and lying on side 2/10. I have intermittent shooting sciatic pain in my right calf and oddly in my left thigh on the outer left edge at the front above the kneecap (which does not follow the L5 nerve path?). I do have on and off tingling in my calves which showed up around 6 months after all this started, I'm not sure if this is also sciatica or if it's to do with the edema of unknown cause that showed up in my legs at the same time (although I'm told my leg swelling isn't enough for any nerve compression).
I am being told it looks like surgery (microdisctomy) may be next step based on scans and failure of conservative treatment, but some things I've read say if the back pain is worse than the sciatic pain an MD is not as successful? I also have fibromyalgia and hypermobility (possibly hEDS), so I usually avoid invasive treatments out of fear of making things worse. Is spinal stenois caused by herniation something that can resolve by itself (even after over one year of no improvement). I have tried every non-invasive treatment (including non-surgical spinal decompression) over the last year. The only nonsurgical thing I haven't tried is an epidural.