Remember, doctors have been feed as much or more misinformation than we have! Keeping up on cannabis is not likely to be high priority for many doctors, especially the older ones. Its up to us to educate those doctors when we can.
Good lord, pop. That's terrible. My issues started in late '09 - I was in culinary school and I bent down to lift a box of ingredients off of a low shelf. Felt a "pop" in my lower back. Figured I pulled a muscle, kept on with my day. The next morning I woke up in agony, and it was all I could do to roll out of bed onto the floor and force myself upright. Since then I've bulged discs in my upper back and neck, and developed symptoms of what the wifey, girlfriend & MIL all tell me sounds like fibro or chronic fatigue syndrome. Wheeee!
As for doctors - I told my PCP that I use cannabis for pain. She said that she couldn't condone or recommend it for me (technically a legal medical state, but still in the very very early stages) but if it worked, keep up with it. I recently saw my pain management doc after suffering a bout of sciatica (never had that before, and christ, is that some terrible pain) and when I told him I medicate with cannabis he literally sat back in his chair and looked at me like I farted on his cornflakes then proceeded to interrogate me about how much I use, how often, how long I've been medicating with it, etc. I've never been a fan of doctors, but even less so when they're telling me how the plant that I'm using to alleviate my pain and mental stress is dangerous and unstudied, but hey, take this Tramadol for a week or so instead and see how it works out.