Hi Lynne,
Welcome to Healing Well. Glad you found us but hope you get that pain taken care of, I know a little about it and its not fun.
I can understand wanting to avoid surgery, however, it sounds like you are pretty much out of options. Not wanting to rain on your parade, but so much of the diet fads do not work to begin with. Most people that have this problem watch what they eat anyway and end up having bad flare ups with the mess. I am very much aware of how ill diverticulitis can make a person. You basically wish you could roll up in a ball and die.
I have two people very close to me that has had this surgery and if I had to pick which surgery of two to be done, it would be the one where you are at right now. You do not want to wait around till that thing perforates. If it perforates, you have a chance of dying because of the toxins being released into the body. These toxins can cause you to become toxic and thats bad. This happened to my brother and let me tell you, you don't know what pain and sick is until that thing perforates. I am not trying to scare you by no means, just being truthfull with you. Because of the perforation he had an open surgery and and they laid him open from side to side. He was so full of infection when they opened him up, it was a mess trying to clean it all out and it all had to come out. They removed 2 ft of his colon. The surgeon came out and talked with me after surgery and gave me the above info on how bad it was on the insides. He also informed me that if my brother made it thru the next 24 hours without any problems, then he was home free. His incision was left open to heal from the inside out, and required packing twice a day. This was after he was released to go home from the hospital about 10 days later. With the incision being left open it took much longer to heal.
A close friend of ours battled diverticulitis attacks for years and was sick as a dog every time one hit. Always had to go on a round of antibiotics, sometimes ended up in ER because of the pain. This man watched his diet like no one I have ever seen. He was extremely careful of any foods he ate. As more time went by the attacks came sooner and worse each time. Finally, he had enough and very reluctanly gave in to surgery. His surgery was laproscopic with steri strips for stitches, because they make small one inch incisions. He had it done as an outpatient. His recovery was fine and he had no problems. He said if he had known how much better he would have felt and the surgery not being anything like he imagined, he could have kicked himself for not having it done sooner. He told my husband and I "man, I could kick myself for all the agony I have gone thru all these years". He is 62 yrs old and had it done about a year ago. He swears he has never felt better in his life and can eat anything he wants.
Now, there is my knowledge of diverticulitis. I wish you luck in whatever decision you make.....Susie