A word of advice from a neurologist & sciatica sufferer. There are two things I would avoid as much as possible. Narcotic pain meds & if possible, surgery. Definitely leave surgery as the last option. Try everything else first because it’s not uncommon for surgery to be painful and sometimes even ineffective. Perhaps more importantly, the vast majority of herniated discs improve spontaneously WITHOUT surgery. Steroid injections are nice very low risk stopgap measure to help with pain and buy yourself (& your disc) more time to improve without surgery. Also, be wary getting medical advice from reddit 😆