The truth is medication and rest are NOT the best way.
Despite what your doctor may have told you.
What I know to be true is you first have to eliminate the activities and movement habits that are provoking your pain. This will calm down the symptoms and give you a better idea of what is going on and where your attention needs to be placed.
From there you need to start feeding yourself more of the opposite type of movement.
In most cases (not all) bending over or flexing the spine creates symptoms so the best thing to do is bend the opposite way below your pain tolerance and build up over time.
Over time as symptoms decrease you have to start building resilience in the tissues surrounding your spine and confidence in your body. You do this by strength training.
Simply put, this is the skeleton of the fastest route out of pain.
There a lot of ins and outs to this process so if you need help email me at william@fitness4backpain.com