@upstatephil Here's what I know about removing surgical hardware. I had plates and screws removed from my ankle that were placed there in fixing a bad ankle fracture. Spinal hardware is a different animal of course. Some people (like me) react to foreign materials in their body. My orthopedic surgeon told me that about 20% of fracture patients ask for removal of the hardware because of pain. Of course healing an ankle fracture is a very painful ordeal, and for me that was much more painful than healing my cervical spine surgery, and in saying that, my spine surgery was a single level simple anterior ACDF surgery (without hardware).

It was hard to know how much pain I had from the ankle fracture injury and healing and how much was caused by my body not liking the hardware. I was getting throbbing aches and pains all the time, kind of like a kick in the shins when the hardware was in place, and it was causing some discoloration of the skin in that area. 6 months after receiving the hardware, I was getting large patches of hives that could come up anywhere, and I had to stay on antihistamines all the time or it was unbearable. My surgeon didn't think it was related, but I did, and removing the hardware resolved all of that and the throbbing pain. I do still get some aches in my ankle, and deal with tightness from scar tissue that affects ligaments and tendons because of added uneven pressure on the joint from a bit of "positional misalignment." It can cause a sudden pain when I take a step if things are not moving properly.

Having metals inside my body also worsened my asthma issues causing a lot more lung congestion and breathing issues that could easily become a chest infection. I have a lot of allergies that make my asthma worse. I know this affected me because when I broke my ankle, I had no metals in my body, and my asthma got worse after ankle fixation, and when the foreign materials were removed, my lung function improved dramatically. Doctors need a lot of degrees of proof in order to draw conclusions about relationships that are health related, so I'm not surprised that they question if there is a problem at all.

Judging after everything was healed, I can say the titanium plates and screws probably caused 60% of the pain. I've only recently figured out that the uneven tension on the joint was responsible for some dysfunction and I've been able to relieve this with physical therapy type work and myofascial release stretching of the scar tissue and lower leg muscles to loosen everything. For the first time since the injury, I have been able to walk completely pain free. My ankle was always fatiguing fairly quickly because of the added pressure of muscle imbalances and tight tissue. I still need to work on improving strength and endurance in the leg, and continue to loosen up tightness that reoccurs. Surgery creates scar tissue that gets tight, and that restriction contributes to pain. The scar tissue can be loosened, and thus improve pain. It helps to maintain this with stretching when ever it begins to tighten up again.

Jennifer