Thundermug, I got the same problems with the addition of 4 more herniated disc and spinal stenosis which is a narrowing of the spine. It' s all in my lower back. The good news is, after 3 years of intense pain, epederal steroid shots every 2 months, and not being able to do anything, I am now almost pain free and without surgery and I havn' t had a steroid since last July. I was getting extremely depressed about my future so out of desperation I went to an acupunture, accumassage doctor. After the first visit last july, I walked out of his office a new man. I' ve had two followup visits since then but it' s almost like a miracle. I' m now back to lifting weights and doing 30 minutes on a treadmill 4 times a week. I' m also doing crunches and situps, something I wouldn' t have even tried before the accupunture visit. I highly recommend it.
Here' s how it works. I lay on his table and he sticks about 20 of them needles in my back (painless). With the needles in my back, I lay there about an hour. What that does is relax the muscles and nerves enough so they can be manipulated by his fingers. He then takes the needles out and does accumassage with his hands and he does it hard, in fact, it usually bruises me and I don' t bruise easy. But, you wouldn' t believe the results. I think it' s worth a try. I' ve sent 4 people to this guy, two of them had the same results that I' ve had. The other two wasn' t quite as successful but they helped.
My back was so messed up that I had 3 different back doctors tell me that surgery was out of the question. All they had to offer was the steroids, physical therapy, and rest. It didn' t work for 3 years. The accupunture did the first visit.
The funny part is my insurance was paying $1200. bucks every 2 months for the steroids and they will not pay a penny for the accupunture and it' s only $45. a visit.
Anyway, it' s worth trying and good luck.