jidmas

For a number of years I have suffered with mild sciatica which has rarely required use of pain killers then in July I twisted awkwardly and was in considerable pain down my left leg. Walking was difficult and extremely painful. After 2 weeks of no relief I went to see an Osteopath. After the second visit I felt a lot better and was able to walk almost pain free but still had considerable sciatica. After 10 weeks of suffering with no improvement and pain levels around 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 I went to see my gp. I had an mri scan which showed up a herniated disc (ruptured in this case).

After almost 5 months since the pain started I am on occasional pain killers. Pain rarely goes above 5 but there has been no improvement over the last 6 weeks. I have good days (virtually no pain) and bad days (niggling all day up to a 5).

Two questions:

Should I be more patient or should I be considering surgery? I am not keen to go down this road due to the risks. I am not keen to have steroid injections either.

How limited am I going to be with regard to movement and physical work assuming I make a "full" recovery regardless of whether I have surgery or steroid injections or not?