That's a good question. In my ideal world s&c would get me to the point of being pain free-ish w/o long-term meds. PT is saying with effort and time invested so far I should be there by now, but she isn't seeing a reason I am not (why she isn't referring out). I am not a candidate for surgery.

But I'm not really sure what "strong enough" is? How many bw squats and back extensions does one need to do to survive the workday (per the PT: "more")? Even with meds on board, sitting causes discomfort to the point of distracting from work pretty quickly. I am certainly in a better place than the first round of PT and have improved as well during this course. I am actually fine with the idea of a longer timeframe of slow improvement w/ periodic monitoring. But the dr/pts are adamant that 8-10 weeks is the healing window, anything else is psychosomatic and not in their scope of practice, yet not worth a referral. PT won't even chart note a recommendation back to the originating clinic. Basically I have to establish care with a new practitioner and the discharge notes make me look like I'm some non-compliant drug-seeking person with imaginary symptoms.

On the bright side the originating clinic has to take my appointment request because I'm an "established patient" - it will just be without a referral within the system which is viewed as attention-seeking behavior so they will be a longer wait (like 2-3 months out instead of 2-3 weeks out).