Did dr show you the xrays and do you believe the pain is from spasms for the most part?
muscle pain vs nerve pain?

muscle pain and spasms can be helped with expert therapists & techniques - IMO
- it may take trying a few different PT & therapies to find the ones that help best....but if I were you I'd request a advanced PT evaluation & some trial sessions.

You might also have trigger points { a very small sore knot in the muscles} these will cause spasms to continue unless the TrPs are released - something to ak a PT about.. if they don't know about them find a more adv PT.

here's a link to one of my posts scroll to find triggerpoint info and other therapy links - http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post388-1.html
I think something there will be of help for you.

As far as wc, my case took 2.5 yrs to close - but it all depends on so many variables you really can't compare time lines.

When i was off work due to my injury - my focus was to heal as much as I could - that was my job.
getting books & videos from the library on pain, healing , recovery, posture, bodywork - and tried stuff from each one to see what worked and what didn't..
many times a day - stretches, relaxing, heating pad, acupressure, ice/heat, triggerpoint - anything I could do myself