A 48-year-old male patient, diagnosed with neurogenic cervical spondylosis, was found to have a huge protrusion of the cervical 7-thoracic 1 intervertebral disc to the left on MRI, causing compression and inflammatory edema of the left cervical nerve root, and had been treated with various conservative treatments for more than half a month, with very strong conservative treatment measures such as intravenous hormone input and dehydration by the local physician, with no improvement in symptoms and progressive worsening of pain and severe “unable to sleep all night”. For such a patient, there are very clear indications for surgery, and surgical treatment should be used as soon as possible to relieve the symptoms. In fact, for neurogenic cervical spondylosis, most patients can obtain good results without surgery through conservative treatment such as bed rest or cervical collar braking, local physical therapy, oral anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs, and oral or intramuscular injections of neurotrophic drugs; moreover, conservative treatment should be the preferred treatment for neurogenic cervical spondylosis. However, this patient had already used, for more than half a month, various conservative treatments and very strong conservative treatment measures such as intravenous hormone input and dehydration, and still had no effect, but instead progressively worsened, with severe pain and “unable to sleep all night”. It was time to use surgical treatment as soon as possible to relieve the patient’s symptoms and pain. In this patient, an anterior cervical discectomy of cervical 7 and thoracic 1 was performed with an intervertebral fusion device and titanium plate fixation. The surgery went well, and the patient’s symptoms improved significantly after the surgery, and he is now back to near-normal work and life. The vast majority of patients with cervical spondylosis tend to choose conservative treatment first because they are concerned about the risks and efficacy of surgery, but this is actually the right starting point. If a simple, conservative treatment method can achieve satisfactory symptom relief, why not use a conservative method? Generally speaking, the advantages of conservative treatment methods are simple operation, relatively low technical content, low cost, relatively small risk, for most patients can have relatively good results, most patients are easy to accept; the disadvantage is that the treatment period is relatively long, the effect of treatment is not very accurate, only about two-thirds of the patients effective, for long-term conservative treatment of patients with poor results, it is difficult to have satisfactory results. Moreover, it is easy to relapse, and even if it is effective, some patients are prone to recurrent attacks; for patients with relatively large disc herniation or heavy nerve root canal stenosis and very serious symptoms, it cannot produce satisfactory results in a short period of time, and even conservative treatment is ineffective. For patients whose conservative treatment is ineffective, some people hope to adopt minimally invasive methods. At present, minimally invasive treatment methods for cervical spondylosis mainly include small needle knife, cervical epidural closure, nerve root closure and other methods. The advantages of minimally invasive treatment are that the trauma, risk and cost are less than surgery, and the treatment effect is better than conservative treatment; however, the disadvantages are also here, and the risk, trauma and cost are greater than conservative treatment, while the treatment effect is worse than surgical treatment, and even if it is effective, some patients are prone to recurrence; in fact, minimally invasive treatment is basically only applicable to the type of patients for whom conservative treatment is effective, and the treatment effect is faster than conservative treatment. In fact, this patient has already been treated with minimally invasive treatment using small needles, and it did not work. Some patients ask, “There are so many other conservative or minimally invasive treatments that I have not tried, should I try them again? In fact, it is the direction rather than the method that is important to the patient, i.e., the patient should choose the direction of conservative, minimally invasive or surgical treatment, and there is no need to try all the different methods in different directions. If the patient tries all the conservative or minimally invasive methods that he has not tried, he will have to be observed for at least a few days in each method. If we try all the conservative or minimally invasive methods that we have not tried, we will have to observe each method for at least a few days. In this way, the patient will not be able to finish trying for several months. Our treatment goal and principle is to relieve the patient’s pain and restore the patient’s normal life function as soon as possible with the least possible cost. This patient had a huge herniated disc that caused severe compression of the nerve roots; before surgery, he endured extreme pain, and various conservative or minimally invasive methods were used without relieving the pain; after surgery, the symptoms were relieved immediately, and the patient was very satisfied with the almost immediate results.