Best advice you will ever get. Suffer from lumbar spinal stenosis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbar_spinal_stenosis caused by herniated disc/degenerative disc disease. Seen a doc that specialized in rehab, he is not a therapist but a psyatrist (?) and he told me to be extremely careful in regards to exercise. No jarring movements, so running is out. No incline walking, causes pain like you would not believe. He did not rule out weight trianing, but strongly cautioned against it due to the high possibility of poor form causing even more back troubles. I do 2 sessions a day on my elipitical and also a treadmill, 25 minutes on each in the morning and again at night. I have lost over 50 pounds so far this year.
OXY, aka Hillbilly ******. My pain killer of choice. I take about 60mg a day of it, a mix between immediate reease and extended. Works great at pain relief and also at putting a concrete plug up your arse. If you chose to use it, I would STRONGLY suggest talking to your doc about something for the concrete plug you will be growing in your arse. Upside to it is it contians no tylenol, so chances of it making your liver fall out are lower. I was taking vicodin, but at the dose I was on the amount of tylenol I was getting was over 2x what you are supposed to take. For me the amount I can take is a very fine line. 60 mg a day is about it, while I still have a great amount of pain, I can at least function. Up around 80 mg a day the sleepiness settles in around 2 in the afternoon, so be careful as you up the dose in an attempt at finding what works for you. I take the extended release ones as a maintenance dose and the immediate release to deal with the breakthru pain. Seems to be working well for me. I wish you luck....