I had my first back surgery at 18, my second at 25, and I've been staving off 5 separate herniated discs since. I'm in a good place now (barring literally today), but I can't stress enough how useless you end up being, mentally, to take enough thc/cbd to relieve your pain enough to be functional. Really, I just trade my disfunction of one type for disfunction of another type, which is only acceptable because sometimes you simply can't handle the pain.
OP: I've had a lot of luck finding relief with tramadol. It may not be sufficient for your pain or work for you, but it's a schedule IV instead of a schedule II - my doctor can even call it in. In my experience, doctors don't treat you as a drug seeker if you suggest it - they almost seem relieved that you're not asking for the radioactive stuff. Just throwing it out as a possibility.
For myself, for the rare times each year I need it now, it has been wonderful: most of the opioids were almost putting me into a frenzy - not really the right word since it wasn't as strong as the word frenzy implies, but I would get pretty amped up and anxious. Tramadol offers me relief but I stay fairly even keeled - I can even keep working, for instance, something I can't say I can accomplish when I'm using enough THC/CBD to achieve relief. I wouldn't drive on it or sign a contract, but I'd put it on par with having a couple of beers at lunch.