My DH has that shooting pain down his leg, the General Practictioner told him it was muscle spams. I didn't believe them and complained till we got an MRI, found out it was a hernated disk. He did decompression therapy (where they pull these to veribrae apart and it "sucks" the disk back in), it did wonders for him. HUGE improvement, and the regular doctor just wanted to do surgery. But from what I've heard, so many back surgeries are considered failures its actually a "disease" now. Failed Back Surgery disease, or something like that. I told him that he was too young and I had to many things left for him to do to take that chance. After he did the decompression, he has some exercises he does at home anytime he starts to feel sore and he seems to be almost normal. I'm so glad we decided against the surgery.