Surgery has a place in certain cases of disc prolapse and particularly at the very severe end of matters and where you have spinal cord or cauda equina symptoms (frank paralysis in the legs, loss of bladder or bowel control, loss of sensation in the "saddle" area between e thighs. And ano-genital area) it becomes essential. Dhdemon you obviously fitted this profile.However in the majoriy of disc prolapses surgery is often disappointing, failing to relieve the symptoms and can even make matters worse in the long term. Generally surgeons who work in the best interests of their patients are very cautious and consevative about operating and those who are "knife happy" should be avoided. There are a number of therapeutic approaches that have research evidence for helping that should be tried first and surgery should really be the last resort unless as I said you have direct encroachment on the spinal cord or cauda equina.

One major problem with back pain is that most of the time we don't know for sure what is causing the pain. Having the presence of a disc bulge or prolapse isn't necessarily the cause of the pain -it just happens to be easily imaged over other poblems. prolapses are very common in people with no back symptoms. So just having a prolapse in the presnce of pain may not be the cause. there often has t be quite a lot of detective work to be sure if that a bulge or a prolapse really is the culprit. Back pain is not straight forward and remains not that easy to treat much of the time -probably one of the reason why there are so many treatments on the market. A case of let the buyer beware