Asking for advice regarding lombar #discal #herniation with strong #sciatic nerve impact

Ok, my lombar discal herniation which strongly affected my sciatic nerve roots that connect to the left leg doesn’t seem to be getting noticeably better, with a few days of meds, the huge pains only happen now when I’m sitting, other than that I feel an almost constant tingling under my left foot and a weird sensation on the whole leg.

Driving is horrible and dangerous (I suddenly need the car to stop so I can walk a few meters), can’t be sitting for either work, meals or relaxing for more than a couple of minutes.

At the hospital I had lots of different pain killers until they decided to use cortizone. The doctor says that’s the last med they can try to ease my life before deciding to do surgery, so let’s see what these meds will do in the space of a week.

What should I do?

I’m a bit scared of the surgery because if it goes wrong I could become crippled, but everywhere I read it’s a very safe procedure. The videos on YouTube make it seem simple enough.

OTOH, not doing surgery basically means that I may get this from time to time. I’m not sure I can handle the thought of this pain again for a week or two, and how easy it can be fired (lift something a tiny bit heavier, for instance), or if I need to jump or suddenly balance my self out of a fall.

What would you do? More interestingly, what *did* you do if you went through such a case?