Physiatrists (but I believe the same can be said of neurologists, rheumatologists, pain therapy specialists, and family doctors) see many patients with lower back pain unresolved by surgical interventions; consequently, they have a distorted, pessimistic view of the effectiveness of surgery on lumbosciatic pain. The troubled stories of these patients include an endless and not always rational series of unsuccessful conservative approaches: the war between proponents of conservative approaches and proponents of surgical techniques, therefore, is often a war between the poor. The war is fueled by a pathophysiological knowledge (to which this book would like to contribute) that, due to its incompleteness, ends up justifying the most varied, arbitrary and often imaginative treatments and, ultimately, the choice for the “last resort” surgery.