Surgery for spinal stenosis usually has a good outcome, if the surgery is done in an extensive manner, and done within the first year or so of the appearance of symptoms.Oaklander and North define the Failed Back Syndrome as a chronic pain patient after one or more surgical procedure to the spine. They delineated these characteristics of the relation between the patient and the surgeon:

The patient makes increasing demands on the surgeon for pain relief. The surgeon may feel a strong responsibility to provide a remedy when the surgery has not achieved the desired goals. The patient grows increasingly angry at the failure and may become litigious. There is an escalation of narcotic pain medication which can be habituating or addictive. In the face of expensive conservative treatments which are likely to fail, the surgeon is persuaded to attempt further surgery, even though this is likely to fail as well. The probability of returning to gainful employment decreases with increasing length of disability. The financial incentives to remain disabled may be perceived as outweighing the incentive to recover.In the absence of a financial source for disability or workers compensation, other psychological features may limit the ability of the patient to recover from surgery. Some patients are simply unfortunate, and fall into the category of "chronic pain" despite their desire to recover and the best efforts of the physicians involved in their care.
TENS units work by blocking neurotransmission as described by the pain theory of Melzack and Wall. Success rates for implanted neurostimulation has been reported to be 25% to 55%. Success is defined as a relative decrease in pain. Chiropractic
Limited case series have shown improvement for patients with failed back surgery who were managed with chiropractic care. Prognosis
Under rules promulgated by Titles II and XVI of the United States Social Security Act, chronic radiculopathy, arachnoiditis and spinal stenosis are recognized as disabling conditions under Listing 1.04 A (radiculopathy), 1.04 B (arachnoiditis) and 1.04 C (spinal stenosis). Return to work
In a groundbreaking Canadian study, Waddell et al. reported on the value of repeat surgery and the return to work in workers compensation cases. They concluded that workers who undergo spinal surgery take longer to return to their jobs. Once two spinal surgeries are performed, few if any ever return to gainful employment of any kind. After two spinal surgeries, most people in the workers comp system will not be made better by more surgery. Most will be worse after a third surgery. Episodes of back pain associated with on the job injuries in the workers compensation setting are usually of short duration. About 10% of such episodes will not be simple, and will degenerate into chronic and disabling back pain conditions, even if surgery is not performed.It has been hypothesized that job dissatisfaction and individual perception of physical demands are associated with an increased time of recovery or an increased risk of no recovery at all.