@jong I don't think there is an exact way to correlate your current condition with your spinal hardware and not the trauma caused by the procedure itself. Sometimes patients have a non-union where they fail to fuse and if that happened in your lower spine, it would be a bad situation. Unless there was a needed revision, a spine surgeon would likely be hard to convince to remove spinal hardware, and then you may get more hardware. You are still healing and growing bone to fuse the area which goes on for a few years.

Surgery does cause a lot of scar tissue, and that can influence pain and function when it all tightens up. That affects anything you try to do, and it isn't that long since your surgery and your body needs rest because it is directing energy to healing. I am a cervical surgery patient, but I do know that lumbar surgeries are a longer more involved recovery.

What you may want to investigate is myofascial release therapy that can loosen the scar tissue and help you move better. It can't overcome fused levels of your spine, but it helps when the rest of the body can be more mobile.

Here is our discussion where you can learn more. I have done a lot of this MFR work and it has helped me a lot. I also did this after my surgeries to loosen scar tissue.

Neuropathy - "Myofascial Release Therapy (MFR) for treating compression and pain"
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/
Have you heard of Myofascial Release before?