A while back, I started having this weird pain running down the back of my leg. Knowing that there was no injury to my leg and it obviously wasn't muscle pain of any kind, I went to the doctor pretty quickly and he told me that it was likely to be an inflamed nerve. He put me on a course of anti-inflammatories and they helped some but far from completely. Then he had me have an MRI. It turns out that I have a herniated disc. Woo.

So, does anyone have any advice of any nature? I already have an appointment with a neurosurgeon to discuss options, but I was hoping that others here might have something useful to say. Surgeons are often quick to fall back on the knife, and I'd rather not do that if makes any sense not to. That is, I don't want to live my whole life in pain if surgery will fix it up, but I'm willing to live with it for a few weeks or months if some physical therapy or something else non-invasive has a decent chance of working. I can always fall back on the surgery if it doesn't work out.