@rodney79 Hi Rodney. Let me welcome you to Connect. I think you are absolutely right about pain being caused from surgical plates. I broke my ankle involving the tibia and fibula in a compound fracture, and I became the owner of 2 titanium plates and 7 screws, one of which was put inside the fibula from the bottom up. At 7 months post op, you're at about the same time frame of when my issues started. I had pain and throbbing from the surgical site at rest, and 6 months after the surgery, I was getting chronic hives. It would start with extreme itching anywhere on my body and was worse where my clothing compressed my skin such as at a waistband. It was masses of hives in huge patches. I had to take an antihistamine at least every third day because as soon as it wore off, I had hives again. It's hard to pinpoint the cause of hives, it could be anything, so my surgeon wasn't convinced that it could be coming from the metals in my body. I had other data that seemed to suggest this because I had just been through some dental procedures that removed old dental work that contained metals, and as soon as my body was metal free, my asthma improved significantly. I had reactions to pierced earrings years earlier and had the give that up, but I had metals in dental fillings and crowns for many years because of breaking my teeth as a kid.

After years of having asthma that got steadily worse, I had all the old dental work removed and replaced with ceramic Zirconium bridgework and zirconium implants, and all of the old silver fillings had been replaced with safer composites by a biological dentist. I felt so much better, but just 3 months later, I broke my ankle and had metal reintroduced in my body and my asthma got worse again. I have lots of allergies to pollen, dust, weeds, grass, etc and can get lots of phlegm. I was also getting extra pigmentation forming on my skin over the surgical plates.

I had to wait at least a year for bone healing, but I had the surgical hardware removed and it has made a big difference. I don't have throbbing pain and my ankle doesn't get hot anymore. The ankle is still more tender than it used to be and aches a little now and then. Allergy inflammation can make a previously fractured bone hurt more according to a PA at my environmental medicine doctor's office. I don't have chronic hives anymore. I have some pain now and then, but it is more related to pain from the ligaments and tendons and muscle weakness from the injury. My asthma improved again when I returned to a metal free existence. My surgeon told me that about 20% of his patients choose to have surgical hardware removed. That had been part of our discussion from the beginning because I suspected that this would be an issue for me.

You can work with an environmental medicine doctor and treatment may include treating allergies that are adding to inflammation that puts a load on the body. You can find information at the American Academy of Environmental Medicine at where there is a provider search.
https://www.aaemonline.org/
There is also information about treatment at the Environmental Health Center of Dallas which you can find at
https://www.ehcd.com/
There is a lab in Chicago that tests for immune reactions to surgical implant materials, but it is expensive, and I think you already know the answer. The lab is Orthopedic Analysis and this is the website:
https://www.orthopedicanalysis.com/
Would you consider having the hardware removed after the fracture has healed enough?