I went throught the same thing for years! No one could figure out what was wrong...i was always in pain..sharp pain, dull pain, you name it I had it,also very tired all the time..i was taking pretty much all the same pills as you. Plus physical theapy. The way they found out it was infdction was an absess at the site of insion. I had it drained and packed. Then the drained site wouldnt heal bc a cyst was protruting out of the drainage insision. They still didnt know untill I went to get the cyst removed at the UofM in michigan. They found my surgen that prformed my surgery at the UofM and she came down to see me...looked right at it and poked around..and said you need those rods out now, they are infected. Then a day later I had to have my hardware removal surgery.

Also I was tested for infection 1 yr. Before and they never found anything...but the infextion was indeed there, they said for a few years. When they took out the rods they were all eaten up by the infection.

Appreciate your response. In your case, the absess at the incision site was an indicator of problems. I have no such things going on. Everything seems to be healed. Tender areas; but nothing to indicate a problem.

The pain has never quit and when I saw your post this sounded like a possible reason for all this pain. I'm glad you were able to get relief; but that's awful what the infection did to the rods.

Other than getting an xray to see if rods are still in place, which might show if rods have deterioated, is probably the way to go. When I had the Myleogram a few years ago, done by the doctor I had originally wanted, showed that one of the screws was close to a vein and should come out because there could eventually be a problem. He told me to go back to the surgeon that performed the fusion.

I did bring the original surgeon CDs of the myleogram. There were two myleograms...one with dye and one witout. It was obvious the surgeon was having a problem even using the CD. I guess he is accustomed to putting an xray on the lighted board and that's about it. The only thing he did finally say was he didn't see that to be a problem and nothing would probably happen. He saw no reason to remove screw. That was over 3 years ago. Have only been to Pain Specialist since then.

Thanks again for your post. Really appreciate your taking the time.

Gerry

I was going to ask about the blood test for infection.

I'm also kind of surprised the rods would have deteriorated (much less caused an infection). I just did some digging, and it turns out that the titanium rods used for surgical implants are actually alloys of Titanium (90%), Aluminum (6%), and Vanadium (4%).
http://www.supraalloys.com/medical-titanium.php

Digging a bit further, I came across this discussion between some doctors on the subject a few years ago:
http://www.fixscoliosis.com/archive/index.php/t-90.html

Apparently, these rods/implants are only expected to have a life expectancy (the rods -- not the patients) of ~20 years. What's supposed to happen after that....? In your case, it wasn't even that long.

From the link above, it appears there may be some studies out there, but why aren't things changing, or patients being fully informed, or a dozen other questions I could think of?

Thanks for the 411. It's something we may be hearing more about with the aging of the Boomers...

Doc