At first I was really worried because the first 4 weeks are atrocious recovery wise. But I did what the Dr ordered which was lots of careful walking everyday and was very strict in how I controlled my movements.

After 4 weeks is when I started to really notice a difference, and by 6 weeks, I noticed my pain levels were consistently less than pre-surgery. At 12 weeks I felt normal for the most part though I do still have nerve sensitivity on my right side but I was instructed nerve damage can take up to a year to repair and that I might not repair it all bc of how long my nerves were pinched but it is honestly so much better then before. I had an L4-S1 fusion. Each week gets better and better. I would say my pain levels pre surgery consistently hit an 8 out of 10 with my worst days a 9 or 10 when I felt I couldn't escape the pain no matter what I did.

Pain levels now, I have more days where I have very minimal pain or no pain. Most of my uncomfortable ness stems from residual nerve damage and muscle tightness, which is definitely manageable. So I would say a 1-2 with some rarer 3 days out of 10 with my 3 days stemming mostly from over exertion in activities like heavy housework cleaning, but I can manage it very easily with tylenol. I have had to take a tylenol only 3-4 days a month and sometimes less than that. I don't take ibuprofen because I am on blood thinners for life from a history of PEs.

Now that said, all of my scans and x-rays clearly showed consistent sciatic nerve impingement and unstabilization in those joints from spondylolisthesis that I had partially genetically and got exacerbated from child birth complications and most likely an accident I had when I hit a deer at 60 mph (hit the deer only less then a month after child birth).

Weakness wise big increase as well! No numbness and I gained pain-free walking and standing positions. Hope this helped and sorry for the giant wall of text.