Best to avoid surgery, I agree.
As I said before physical therapy worked wonders for me, 2x a wk for 5 months. My Dr. bless her knew my problem cuz she suffers from the same thing, she told me to go to PT (I didn't know at the time that she also had herniated cervical discs). Hubby told me to go to chiropractor cuz it would be cheaper ... but I was in tremendous pain the whole time I was there, having to crawl off the table slowly. Kept getting worse but have to say that he was the one who sent me to get x-rays that showed the osteo-arthritis / degenerated disc. When my Dr got the results she yelled at me for not going to PT first.
About a month into PT I walked in and there was my Dr getting her therapy too.
But even my therapist said that not all people get relief from PT. Gratefully it worked for me and if I feel those warning signs that I didn't recognize b4, I start to do my stretches etc and stave off a relapse.
We have to take good care of ourselves.
I hope that you get relief without surgery