[annapurna]

To add to pbrav's encouragement, there are a lot of new approaches that are being used to treat discs that are showing some damage but not enough to warrant surgical replacement. Stem cell injections are showing reasonable success for discs like that. You don't hear too much about them here because most people aren't in a position to pursue that kind of treatment: by the time there's enough pain to cause them to figure out why their back hurts, the damage to the disc is advanced and stem cell procedures would require more time than they have. For adjacent level damage, though, they do hold some hope. Laura had ACDT on her L45 years ago and hasn't had problems with it since.