As people’s living standards improve and their demands for quality of life become higher, back pain and leg pain are now diseases that need to be addressed. Which treatment is the best for a patient with a herniated disc in the lumbar spine? It depends on the patient’s specific situation. Most patients do not require open surgery. If the herniation is not serious, conservative treatment can solve the problem or significantly relieve it. Specific treatment includes bed rest, wearing a lumbar girth, putting some ointment for blood circulation and pain relief on the lumbar area, not sitting and standing for a long time, as well as exercising the lumbar back muscles, and also taking some oral anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs, such as ibuprofen or fen-phen, etc. Of course, physical therapy, hot compresses and traction can also be given. For those recurrent, severe pain affecting life or work, as well as huge, free disc herniation, the current accepted first choice of treatment is open surgery, including disc removal, bone graft fusion, internal fixation, the efficacy. This is a tried and tested, proven treatment method. Many hospitals also include this method as a routine procedure, which, of course, has brought blessings to many patients. With the advancement of medical technology, minimally invasive surgery is also gradually becoming mature. There are many kinds of minimally invasive treatments for lumbar disc herniation, including chemical nucleation, ozone therapy, laser therapy, radiofrequency therapy, percutaneous lumbar disc removal, laparoscopic surgery, posterior discoscopy, lateral posterior foraminoscopy, and so on. There is no denying that minimally invasive surgery is becoming increasingly popular among many spine surgeons and, indeed, has solved the ailments of numerous patients. However, minimally invasive surgery is currently not performed well in many places for several reasons: the first may be the knowledge and understanding of the indications for minimally invasive surgery; furthermore, the learning curve of minimally invasive surgery. A good minimally invasive surgeon should not only have rich experience in open surgery, but also have a good sense of spatial discrimination under the mirror, sensitive tactile recognition, and the ability to “separate the hand from the eye”. The above may require a long and steep learning curve. As some physicians have said, minimally invasive is a “tube in a panther” and the risks are not insignificant for the beginner. With the advancement of minimally invasive spine technology, not only the inclusive disc herniation can be solved by minimally invasive surgery, but even the huge herniated, prolapsed, and free disc herniation into the spinal canal can be solved by minimally invasive surgery, and now, minimally invasive surgery is also effective in treating lumbar spinal stenosis caused by ligamentum flavum hypertrophy, lateral saphenous fossa stenosis, and articular eminence coalescence. Of course, there are indications for minimally invasive surgery, which must be strictly observed, but this indications are not set in stone. The currently accepted so-called indications should also be gradually revised in practice. In conclusion, minimally invasive technology is advancing and minimally invasive surgery is really good.