Degenerative lumber disease: 22 with the back of a 60-year-old

I'm just 22 years old, I walked into the hospital expecting the usual answers for persistent back pain. Perhaps it was stress, bad sitting posture from long hours of studying, or even something minor that a short-term treatment plan could fix. But the diagnosis was neither expected nor simple. I was slapped in the face with a diagnosis that I had never heard about in my life- degenerative lumber disease. My doctor explained it as a condition commonly seen in older individuals, people in their 50s or 60s. Suddenly, I felt decades older, burdened not only by the pain, but by the weight of a condition that has no cure.