Hi Garrett,
Welcome to the forum....I have been here for about 10 yrs and have always found the members to be very helpful and supportive. I am happy that you joined and introduced yourself because unfortunately what I am seeing is a lot of people viewing but, percentage wise, not that many partaking in the discussions so it is great to have you here.

Disc herniations can be so painful and I feel bad that you are enduring this at such an early age. I have a herniation also at c4/5 that I have dealt with for several yrs and like you, doing anything to avoid surgery. I do have to say that ESI's work very well for me...Epidural Steroid Injections and when I have them done I ask the doc to also give me a series of the trigger point injections....the ones with a numbing agent and anti inflammatory agent
(like lidocaine and toradol) and that works pretty well for me. I don't know where your herniation is but for cervical, it works well.

There are so many forums here to help you, spinal, chronic pain, etc.
I wish you the best. You mentioned a fiancé...do you have a wedding date?
Take care, Diandra