@sharonbrenna @tacaropat Hi Sharon. Thank you for your question. The problem with titanium is that it isn't pure. There are some other trace metals in it. I am a spine surgery patient, and prior to that, I did have my blood tested for allergies to several metals. At that time, the test did not show any problems which surprised me a bit. I had to make a decision on cervical spine surgery about fusion vs. artificial disc. I wasn't the best candidate for the artificial disc and I decided to have a fusion with no hardware, just a bone graft and avoid any potential issues related to hardware. I had also had some issues with dental crowns in my mouth, one of which was a titanium base and the others were metals of something else. With failing root canals under the crowns, I had the teeth removed and replaced with non metal implants of Zirconium that came a bit later. As soon as the teeth with all the metal was extracted, my asthma and breathing suddenly improved and I was breathing easily needing no medication or inhalers at all. There was less inflammation in my body. I do allergies shots for seasonal allergies. I had no metals in dental fillings because they had all been replaced with safer materials by a biological dentist several years ago.

All was well until I broke my ankle a year ago, and needed titanium plates to fix the joint. My asthma got worse again, and I do have some pain around the plates, and there is some pigmentation happening over the plates on my skin. 6 months after receiving the ankle plates, I began having chronic hives... not one or two, but whole patches covering large areas of my arms, thighs or belly. Nothing else has changed, so I suspect I have developed a reaction to them. I will know after the hardware is removed and they bother me enough to go through it. I have not been re-tested to confirm a metal allergy to titanium as my insurance won't pay for that. I did have to give up wearing pierced earrings completely many years ago because of contact allergies to the metals..... all of them including 22 k gold, silver, surgical steel and platinum. Inflammation ads up in the body and can come from lots of things like allergies or foods. I have a restricted diet because of food allergies and gluten so I cleaned that up years ago, and I can't eat a lot of the foods that are considered unhealthy. I have already decided to remove the hardware, so I don't feel a need to retest immune responses to metals.

Another suggestion I could make would be to consider trying to stretch the surgical scar tissue with myofascial release therapy. All surgery creates scar tissue and scar tissue and knots in the fascia which is tight holding everything together. If that gets stretched out, it can glide and move again which relieves pain. I do this therapy a lot with my physical therapist. Here is our discussion with lots of information on the first few pages. There is a provider search on the MFR website. See the discussion for that info. https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/

Is myofascial release something new that you may want to consider?