This is a bit of an anecdote, but my mother-in-law had some back pain, and she came home one day and said that she was going to have a spinal fusion surgery. We

This is a bit of an anecdote, but my mother-in-law had some back pain, and she came home one day and said that she was going to have a spinal fusion surgery. We ended up doing a little bit of research on the surgery, and it turns out is unbelievably invasive, you were literally bolting your vertebrae together, and we recommend that she got a second opinion. The second doctor she went to was literally horrified that it was suggested and she ended up getting a cortisone shot (I think?) that dramatically reduced her symptoms to a manageable level and she’s been low-pain for half a decade.