[ktblunden]

I had a severe herniation at L4-L5 that was pushing on my left sciatic nerve, which sent a constant sharp pain down my left leg. The pain would never go away completely and standing or walking made it much worse. I had two injections. The first one was done by a crappy Kaiser doctor and he missed the area completely so it did nothing for me. The second one was done by a well recommended spine surgeon (switched to my wife's much better insurance) who targeted the nerve perfectly. My pain went away completely for about two months and then came back and got worse. I opted for surgery as the pain was getting worse and you can't get more than 3 epidurals in a 12 month period. In July of this year I had a microdiscectomy and laminectomy. My doc basically removed the bulging disc material and a little bone and cartilage to free up as much room around the base of the nerve as possible. My sciatic pain is now completely gone. Different solutions work for different people, and it depends a lot on how good the doctor is.