So much tosh talked about backs.
Facet joints trapped on full travel are a big one. Encapsulation material jamming the surface. All good stuff for a chiropractor. A popped disc, there's only one way to go.
How do you decide?
There is a triage clinic in a lot of places, and the detective work they do follows a set routine that has been established over many, many years. It's a sound logic. But nothing compares to an MRI done on a machine with a good coil. Then, a good man looking at the pictures. It took me hours to finally make out what I was supposed to be looking at, and I was being instructed by a spinal surgeon.
40 quid for an MRI? Direct operating costs? Yeh, right...if your NHS doesn't buy the time from a private company that happens to be physically embedded into the hospital building so as you'd never know. 500, ten years ago. And get on a cancellation list being ready to get there in 30 mins. Be ready for your insurers to pay 1,000. And that would be a gift over here in the US.
Put me down for what homonculus says. FFS, it's a few quid. If the spiky bits of a herniated inter-vertebral disc are prodding into the sheath of the spinal chord it will not be resolved by manipulation. It will just piss it off.
Think of a radial tire/tyre...the steel wires bursting out of the periphery.
It's true not to rush into surgery. Your call, but let me tell you, constant back pain marks an end to the life you know.