Progression from awful localized pain to pins and needles in the legs?

I've been told in the past by my doctor and PT that it's better to have pain centralized in the back rather than radiating down the legs. For the last half year I have been unable to walk when I wake up in the morning. Just absolutely excruciating pain right in the center of my lower back. It would lessen after an hour or two and then I could walk again.

Here's the thing. Over the last few weeks, suddenly I have no pain in the morning (or very little). I can just get up out of bed and walk. The only thing that's concerning me is that I now have more of that sciatic pain instead. Just a kinda prickling/burning sensation in both my legs on the skin. More of an annoyance than actual pain. Just happens randomly all throughout the day. I did not have this prickling sensation at all before a couple of weeks ago. Like my body just traded the horrible central pain for prickly legs instead. Am I to believe this is worse than the pain being so bad I couldn't walk in the mornings?

I remember the doctor showing me on the MRI that the L4-L5 disc had herniated in an L shape out and upward and pressing on my spine. Maybe that one has healed and the other ones are just tickling the nerve rootlets now? I don't know. I want to make sure that this isn't an eye-of-the-storm type of thing where I think things are calm but it's really a disaster all around me.

These were my MRI results from last august.

FINDINGS:
ALIGNMENT: Minimal grade 1 retrolisthesis of L4 on L5 and L5 on S1. Several Schmorl's node deformities are present. No pars defects identified. Vertebral body height and alignment is otherwise normal.
BONE MARROW: Mild edema along the L4-5 facet joint may represent facet inflammation. Degenerative endplate signal changes are present without evidence of an acute fracture. Mild disc height loss at L4-5 with moderate disc height loss at L5-S1.
CONUS: The conus medullaris is within normal limits, terminating at the T12-L1 level. No definite evidence of arachnoiditis.

T12-L1: Unremarkable

L1-2: Unremarkable

L2-3: Mild facet disease without disc bulging, spinal canal stenosis, or foraminal narrowing.

L3-4: Minimal disc bulging and mild facet disease without significant spinal canal stenosis or foraminal narrowing.

L4-5: Minimal grade 1 retrolisthesis. Mild diffuse disc bulging with small central disc extrusion with superior migration. Moderate facet disease with fluid in the facet joints, right greater than left. Mild spinal canal stenosis with mild bilateral lateral recess stenosis. No definite impingement of the L5 nerve rootlets along the lateral recesses. There is mild bilateral foraminal narrowing without definite L4 nerve root impingement identified.

L5-S1: Minimal grade 1 retrolisthesis. Mild to moderate disc bulging and hypertrophic osteophytes, asymmetric to the left. Mild facet disease. Mild spinal canal stenosis with mild to moderate left and mild right lateral recess stenosis. Disc abuts but does not definitely compress the left S1 nerve rootlets along the lateral recess. There is mild to moderate left and mild right foraminal narrowing. No definite L5 nerve root impingement identified.