A patient asked me whether to do fusion surgery for a herniated disc in the lumbar spine. My answer is that for patients with severe symptoms and who are in a hurry to relieve them, try to follow the philosophy of step therapy slowly. People are better off with the original. According to your condition, the degeneration is not considered severe. Based on your age of 38, it is not too old. It is a bit early to fuse up completely. Your condition is completely treatable with minimally invasive surgery first, with an overall excellent rate of about 95%. If minimally invasive endoscopy can cure it, why take a stab at it? In case it is not good, the return surgery will be even bigger. Minimally invasive surgery, even if the results are not good, and then fusion surgery, has a much lower incidence of risk according to a large population percentage. For example, if 10,000 patients with lumbar disc herniation undergo fusion surgery, the complication rate is calculated at 2%, which means that 200 patients will have poor outcomes after fusion surgery. If 10,000 patients do not have fusion surgery and do minimally invasive surgery, according to the 2% probability of complications, 200 people need to do revision surgery, and the incidence of poor outcomes after fusion surgery for these 200 people is 4. What is the difference between 200 people and 4 people? Not to mention how much economic investment is reduced, how many patients do not need to undergo major surgery alone? It is of great social significance.