When you get a bad recurrance (throw your back out so to speak) a muscle relaxer such as Flexeril. is a great help for short term relief from the muscle spasms. After the inflammation goes down you will need to lean some stretching exercises to do daily (forever) to keep the discs from compressing. Generally, a physical therpist helps with these stretches. Get a reference not all PT's are the same. You will get past this and walking is good after the inflammation goes down. My brother in law has this too and gets set back once in a while now that he is stretching with the right stretches he is very active.
take care,
mkh9