Mom has had a herniated disc for the last 2 months. She's been on vicodin but pain was worse when she woke up this morning, so I helped drive her to the hospital. I'm at work now, but my father's with her. They're just waiting in the emergency room now, so I'll have to wait and see what they say.
Next step is probably surgery, though there's no guarantee that it will actually relieve the pain. She's finding out about alternative treatments, but I'm getting the impression that since nothing is a sure thing, she may just go for the surgery in the hopes that this will get it over with, and not delay any longer -- because delaying will only make things worse.
Sigh.
[edit:] Just found out that they've scheduled her for surgery tomorrow morning, so hopefully that will do the trick. If there's still pain (or complications) after, I'm not sure what the next step will be. I'm hoping the surgery will take care of the problem alleviate the pain.
http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/herniateddisk/a/ruptureddisk.htm