I ride with a friend who is in his 70's. He's come back from two back surgeries. The first was for sciatica, bad enough to give him all manner of shooting pains in his legs. Shortly after working to get back on the bike after that operation, he had a ruptured/herniated disc (dunno which vertebrae were involved) which also caused a lot of pain. He's back on the bike after surgery for that. I'm sure he would've preferred not to have surgery in either case, but taking vicodin was making it hard to ride, as well; apparently one side effect is shortness of breath.