If you are experiencing intense pain in your back, neck, legs, or arms that you cannot seem to get rid of, you may be suffering from a pinched nerve in your spinal column. When you have this kind of chronic pain, it can make even the simplest tasks difficult or uncomfortable, and sometimes the pain is not relieved even when sitting or laying down. 

When you are suffering from unrelenting back pain, you may feel as if you are willing to do anything to alleviate your pain, even if it means having back surgery. And when people think of back surgery, they often envision a spinal fusion–that is, a surgical procedure in which damaged portions of the spinal column are removed, and two or more vertebrae are treated so that they ultimately fuse together into one unit. However with current technology spinal fusions don’t have the same recovery as they used to, and most people are able to return to a high level of activity.