Tammy
I am not sure this is of the same nature as your mother's disk problem but thought i'd pass on what helped me. Mine was a pretruding disk between L4-L5 so it might be different than a herinated disk. I was put in the hospital and was told I needed surgery and the pain was so severe I couldn't walk. The pain was shooting down my siatic nerve into my leg. I am not a person who just takes 1 dr. word for it so I left the hospital only to find myself desperate and hurting. I called several types of drs.including a chiropractor (i never believed in chiropractors) but was deperate as I said. All I know is that after questioning several I just had a good feeling about one who told me he had helped peope with this before and for me to come in and he would see if he could help. Two visits later I truly was pain free and with no more visits haven't had another problem with the disk. I have been told by many people that sometimes their pain is WORSE after surgery so maybe you can check around and hopefully get other opinions before you jump into anythng. I am not saying what worked for me will work for her but I do know others who have gotten better via chiropractors. I never woud have thought he could help but he did so look at all option but be careful. Just as there are good and bad drs. i'm sure the same apples to chiropractors. My 1st question to the one I seen was, "have you ever worked with pretruding disk problems before and can you help me"? Good luck, Tammy