Welcome, kathanks2015!
I'm sorry I don't have anything helpful to add to this discussion but hope you can find some useful answers because living with chronic pain and being crippled by it--that's no fun at all.
I've had some severe lower back pain and understand I have a compression fracture at L4. I'm going to have a CT scan next week and maybe there will be some nonsurgical treatment. I'm not at all keen on any kind of spinal surgery but apparently it works wonders in some situations.
I do find that lots of rest eventually helps my pain to get less intense but it does take time.