Hi Biogen, I had a double spinal fusion last June on L4,L5 and S1. Mine is 17mm off. I have whole new set of screws and rods and my scar is not dissimilar to yours only perhaps not as long. What level was your fusion done at?

I recovered in the hospital for 7 days and they were very surprised with my range of movement, that said, I supposedly have a high pain level threshold. They kept me in an extra 2 days as I was unwell. About 3 weeks after the op I had been following all the do's and don'ts and doing my PT exercises. I had graduated from 3x10 min walking sessions to a full 30min walking slowly and the pain had been well in control. Out of nowhere, my back froze and the pain was excruciating. I could not even lean down to get the milk from the fridge door. I saw my surgeon and he explained that my back muscles were in spasm and to stop all exercises. Which I did. When I saw him again, the muscle spasm had gone but the new pain which was different to what I had before the procedure had remained. On further investigation we learned that my levels L2 L3 that are now having to work harder are also damaged. Because the fused area is solid the vertebrae above are having to move more and be more flexible. This new pain radiates out to my hips and is as bad, if not worse than the pain I had before the fusion. I was sent off for nerve blocks and Rhyzotomy to no avail and by November my pain management specialist and I agreed it was time to trial an SCS. Did that and had a permanent SCS implant done in the December, but that's a whole different story.

This was my 4th spinal fusion and not the first time I have had trouble post op. My first fusion result was wonderful, 5 weeks after the procedure I remember being told off for running in the corridor of the hospital. This was back in the 1970's and I had been in hospital for 8 weeks. A very cooped and fed up teenager. I had 15 wonderful active years, not completely pain free but I was young and just got on with it. My high pain threshold did me no favours in the long run as I did things in hindsight I should never have contemplated. Never mind we only live once.

2nd spinal fusion in the 1990's was a nightmare, I fell in the bathroom at hospital on about day 3 and I complained of back pain. No one paid any attention and for two years I complained bitterly. Finally after much anguish and frustration they agreed to X-Ray and realised the screws and plates had broken so they had to be removed.
Waking up from that third operation, I could feel instantly the hardware had been removed and the pain was gone. Yes the surgery site hurt a bit, but that deep intense pain gone gone gone.

From my experiences, 4 things.
1) make sure you have no fever. Take your temperature very morning at the same time for 5 days and again each evening. (Not after drinking or eating anything hot.) You want to rule out possible infection in the spine, your doctor should also do blood tests to check.
2) you should be having post op X-rays at about 6 weeks, get them to closely check the hardware and see if it's pressing on a nerve.
3) make sure they look at the hardware for signs of stress fracturing in it. Titanium is supposed to be the strongest alloy in the world, but my bones managed to snap those plates and one screw clean in half, because they left it so long, when they did the op to remove them, they could only get the top half of the broken screw out. So now I have a half a screw embedded in the bone adjacent to my new screws. Nowadays they do rods and screws so the hardware is less at risk. To this day, I believe I fractured the screw when I fell and in time it broke clean in half.
4) don't let them fob you off or brush you off post surgery, if you don't have a pain management specialist already, get your surgeon to refer you to one now.

Good luck and keep taking panadol or paracetamol every 6 hours, it helps build up pain tolerance and you might want to think about getting laxatives to aid with intestinal discomfort that can also contribute to spine pain in those first months post op.