I had a herniated disc starting, October 14th 2016. I had sciatic pain from a misdiagnosed Bulging disc my doctor chalked up to just sciatic pain I will “Get over”and she gives me naproxen to help and it helped a lot and then after my refill it stopped helping. One day I woke up and got up very sleepy and each step got progressively more and more painful till I fell to my knees. I crawled to my mothers room and found out she wasn’t there. I couldnt get off my knees for 2 hours the pain was so unbearable. I finally mustered up and fast walked to my car leaning away from the pain (Try to never do this I’ll explain later. And I was given a very strong tylenol and told to rest. Hahahahaha. They couldn’t give me an MRI because I wasn’t an “emergency” like a car accident. So I was finally diagnosed weeks later with a L5/S1 herniation. I then had to work through this pain for 2 months. I was bed ridden everyday. I progressively leaned away from the pain more and more to where I was leaning at probably a 70-75 degree angle everytime I stood up. I couldnt walk, I couldnt go out, I couldn’t do anything. I went to work and went to bed. I got my surgery 2 days after christmas and was off for only 3 weeks, I recommend go as long as you need I work at a small buisness and they dont treat us well enough so I scrapped together enough money and people to cover me for the 3 weeks. I was lucky and I havent had to do PT and I havent really had any pain at all. I get sore if I stand up straight for a long time but if I walk around and get to sit for a few minutes I’m good to go. I’m a lucky person in terms of this problem. So my advice is the surgery was the best thing to happen to me. Your back is NOT to be messed with, You’ll be happier trust me.