anybody here ever deal with ortho back issues?

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BTW, my dad had/has spinal stenosis. He had severe pain and could not walk for more than a hundred yards or so at a time.

For a number of reasons, he was/is not a candidate for surgery. The one (and only) thing that helped was the water exercise classes at the local Y.

it seems for a lot of us, spinal issues seem to be inherited. my dad also had to have surgery and thereafter could not walk or stand or sit for extended periods of time. I seem to have inherited his genes. glad to hear that everything turned out reasonably well for you

UPDATE- I am cautiously optimistic that lumbar traction treatments have alleviated the bulk of my symptoms to where I can walk mostly without a cane nowadays and even do very light [with cane for support] yardwork [picking up blowdown after recent storm]. this was after 2 weeks of treatments. I had previously read about it and was put off by warnings that unstable spondy should not try it, but I said to hell with it and the PT person said I needed to do it always with legs bent, so that is how I've been doing it. the commercial traction tables cost thousands of dollars and the home stretchers cost hundreds, but I found one [called, simply enough, "spinal stretch"] that cost about $40 bucks that one hooks one end into a door jamb and the other end terminates in a back belt one cinches tighly around one's hips, lies on the ground, takes up the slack in the spring-loaded tension belt [acts as governor of tension preventing sudden changes in tension], then using a device similar to the pump handle on a tire jack, ratches up the tension until one is just about pulled into the door but not quite, maybe an inch or so of movement [that represents about half of one's body weight or the equivalent of a -30 degree angle on an incline spinal inversion table] and just lies there for between 5-10 minutes, then ratchets down the tension and lie down another 5-10 minutes, then slowly get back up. at first it left my back sore afterwards, as the muscles that weren't used to that kind of stretching protested, then afterwards all it did was make my sciatica symptoms go away [decompresses the sciatic nerve] for several days afterwards. I've been doing it every day in an attempt at withdrawing the disc material from an l1 popped disc that had been impinging on my spinal cord, I can tell that has helped as well because I can now lie down flat on my back whereas I could not before without pain after a few minutes.
I write this in the hopes that other people may read this and find a possible escape route from their lumbar issues relating to sciatica, as well.
I am cautiously hopeful that at least I can push back my complex fusion surgery/laminectomy to sometime in the distant future. wish me luck.

does a steroid shot in the back count as surgery?

nope. it is an outpatient procedure, where one is checked in early-morning, and sometimes given a sedative and/or muscle relaxant, lies face down on a special axial table, subject to fluoroscopy, the injection target is visualized, spinal needle injected in stages with periodic release of local anaesthetic [usually Marcaine] then once the target area proximate of the affected vertebral segment is located, the steroid is injected in stages, a first dose for diagnostic purpose, as the patient is asked if he or she feels shooting pains down one leg or the other, then once that is established [location of compressed sciatic nerve root] the full depo Medrol dose is injected. I had one such procedure done and since I was doped up it was not a scary procedure. but the potential side effects of the combined doses of steroid and relaxant can cause persistent hiccups in some folk, me included.

Auntblabby, Glad to hear your traction device is helping so far. I hope it continues, and that your disc will go back to its proper spot.

thank you it seems to be a glacially slow process of healing with an indeterminate [at this point] final result. but so far I do not meet the criteria for immediate surgery. but because joe insurance is being a tight-fisted schlemiel, I must be my own doctor and nurse and physical therapist and pharmacist.

UPDATE- still making glacially slow but so far steady progress, in terms of increased function/strength/steadiness and less stiffness/soreness/radiculopathy. sciatica is about 25% of what it was in the morning, then after a handful of advils goes away after a few hours. now in the supermarket I can just hang on a bit to the shopping cart, cane not necessary. most of this benefit seems to have come from the traction device, the remainder due to diligent application of PT exercises designed to strengthen the stabilizing muscles surrounding my spine and abdominal core muscles. am cautiously optimistic so far.