I had a discectomy in 1993 and was pretty much ok till 2003, I woke up one day and was in pain, the doctor visited me and gave me pethadine tabs but after he left I had a burning sensation down my left leg from the bottom of my spine to my little toe, I have not had any feeling in most of my left leg since that day, I had to stop work from that day and have not worked since,I used to get cramp every night but you can get quinine sulphate from the doc for that and it stops it but you have to take one tablet every night for life, you then get nuropathic nerve pain ,pain killers do not work on this you have to get a drug called lyrica from the doc and this works quite well, also vitimin b100 complex from a health food shop helps.I of course hope this does not happen to you but thought it best to know what to possibly expect ,one word of advise i can give which i ignored is do not lift ,pull or push anything no matter what you think you are capable of at the time as it will come back and haunt you. I hope this helps in some way and as i said i do not mean to frighten you.