Today I went to the surgeon who operated on me, armed with my CT scan from December and my scan from April. In April I had had 4 months of no fosamax, steroids, and 3 months of a bone growth stimulator.

My surgeon was astonished. Basically, I'm the worst outcome he's ever seen. There is zero bone growth. All screws are very loose, and there is no bone growing where it's supposed to to fuse.

He said it's all about my pain, and how I am doing. My nerves are not in danger, he says. (I'm not sure, and I will ask my neuro about another NCS to be sure) So, whenever I feel I can no longer tolerate the pain, or my quality of life, he'd re-do me, or support me fully in being re-done by whatever spine surgeon I feel most comfortable with. (really!).

But, he said, it would have to be a 360, anterior and posterior surgery, where they fuse from behind and remove the disks to fuse from the belly.

When I balked at this and asked about somethign more minimal, he said absolutely no. There would be no point. My fear of the 360 is misplaced, he said. It's only about 20 minutes longer than the postrior only, and the recovery is not terribly different. I was out of work 4 weeks with the original surgery; he said maybe 6 with the 360.

But, he said, he's never seen a failure like this. Usually, when a spine doesn't fuse, you see bone growth, just not enough. Or you see one level didn't fuse, while the others did. You don't see this, he said, where all screws are now quite loose, and every level has zero bone growth at all. He's totally puzzled.

So, I asked him, if he does a 360, what makes him think I will grow new bone then? Wouldn't you expect that whatever is preventing my bone from healing would still be doing that?

Good point, he said, we dont know. He said he honestly doesn't know why it happened. Maybe the Fosamax, maybe the steroids, maybe my body rejectd the bone matrix protein. No way to know.

I'm seeing a bone metabolism specialist at the end of the month; he's hoping he has somethign to add.

I asked him to report me. I asked him to notify the FDA and the manufacturers of the drugs I was on and write a case report, so other doctors would know. Afterall, who knows how many women who took fosamax are having failed spinal surgery if no one reports it? He didn't respond. My take was he didn't want the bother.

The test the bone specialist has ordered are all tests to see if bone is being destroyed: bone alkaline phosphatase, a bone density scan, and urine cross-linked collagen. All these show if bone is being broken down.

But I have no idea what he can do to see if my body is capable of growing bone. It's 3 weeks away.

Not happy here. Not depressed, thank goodness, but definitely not happy. I HATE being an interesting patient.