After my previous response, I got a little curious; I only found one other person on this site who had this done.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...d.php?p=636191
You may have done a similar search to this(?)
acdf removing hardware
From some of those discussions, some say the hardware is only removed if there's a problem, some say their surgeons did it as a matter of course, some were removed during subsequent acdf procedures (
adjacent segment degeneration), and some just left the hardware in. This is anecdotal only; I didn't find/see any statistics, but I did find this short video:
Do you need to remove your hardware from a spinal fusion after the spine fuses?
Best wishes for a complete & painless recovery,
Doc