If only it were a simple matter of ..."do the surgery and face the flare with plenty of pain meds as ammunition until things die back down".
Wishful thinking on my part tho
With your autoimmune factored in, it becomes pretty complex and I totally understand your frustration. The implant will take away your nerve pain....but at what cost? And for how long?
I'd sure like to think that everything will be fine once the SCS takes away the nerve pain, which aggravates everything else....and that will certainly be my prayer for you, Spine. Maybe by some measure, it will be that easy. ?

Meanwhile, your frustrations are not falling on deaf ears. We certainly know and understand what this ongoing pain does to every aspect of our lives. Being able to speak freely of our pain here means so much, because of the empathy that is spread amongst us. I have lost friends because of trying to talk about what this has done to me and frankly they don't want to hear it.
It's not that they don't care of course.

Thank you for sharing how you are feeling. This reminds us all of how huge of decision this is. People who come here searching for 'real' discussion on this can see the reality of what is involved.

We're all in this together.
We all care.

Rae