Oh my aching back!

I have a herniated disk in my lower back, (to the point that the first thing out of my doctor’s mouth when he saw my X-Ray was “holy crap”!) in addition to the degenerative disk or two in there. I’ve been taking my Darvocet and my flexeril, and I’m still in pain, all the time. I use an inversion board; witch helps a little, sometimes. I’ve been to physical therapy that helped, for a little while. Basically I’m at the point where it’s either have surgery, witch may or may not help, but statistics are more on the side of not, or just deal with the pain for the rest of my natural life. Neither sound like a very good option.