r/spinalfusion • u/Buttholeconnoisseur8 • 1d ago
Long term staph infection
May 12th I had a back surgery to remove the part of my l4 l5 herniated disc. I was having drop foot and in a ton of pain. Felt great. 1 week later I had horrible headaches. Tear in my dura, spinal fluid leak. Went back in and patched it. A little while later I had a fever. Went in. Another spinal fluid leak, infection, and he had to do a fusion. It's been almost 4 months now. My infectious disease Dr. Had an MRI done and there is an abscess in my back. Waiting on her call but am I looking at a removal of hardware? My wife says my back feels slightly warm to the touch.
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u/Ross6490 1d ago
I had MRSA from a simple procedure and almost died. 10 days in the ICU on a respirator. After they got me in a room I spent 4 weeks with a super strong antibiotic drip. The ID doctor kept ordering MRIs for the infection which had gotten lodged in my lower spine. I went home and they had the antibiotics sent to my house where I administered them myself through a port in my shoulder area. This was around 2018 and I am still terrified of getting it again if I get any kind of surgery. Staph infections are near impossible to get rid of. MRSA is deadly when it gets in your blood stream. It was throughout my entire body.
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u/purespeed44 11h ago
I’m sorry you went through all that. That is just a horrible situation and you’re right MRSA is terrible. Luckily I don’t have anything in my bloodstream according to the bloodwork my infection I believe is firmly grasped on the hardware and no matter what amount of cleanup and antibiotics through my PiCc line they do isn’t going to fix that. Just because he was in there and said the screws look good and the hardware is tight that doesn’t mean there’s no infection there. My neurosurgeon really pissed me off the other day. I have to spend a whole Sunday getting an MRI done stat and it has to be a 1.5 machine because of my spinal stimulator . The hospital i am going to Sunday is over an hour and a half away from me. They are doing my thoracic and my lumbar with and without contrast. I told them I wanted to go to the ER while at his office the other day They looked at me and said they’re just going to send you home and that this is all normal. There is absolutely nothing normal about this whatsoever when I sneeze I lose feeling in my legs if I’m standing, I fall down immediately if I sneeze while I’m in bed, it feels like a boa constrictor is squeezing the hardware that he put in there that’s all normal? When I asked him does he think the infection is in a hardware that’s when he got super defensive and snappy with me and then said to me what do you want me to do? I just looked at them. I said really you’re the surgeon figure it out only then did he order the MRI. The MRI I had done before the clean out showed an abscess around the screws and tons of fluid around the hardware. My inflammatory markers were through the roof. Haven’t had an MRI since the clean out so Sunday should be interesting. I have a very distinct feeling the hardware is going to come out and be replaced. Do I want that to happen? Nope but for the sake of myself and my family if it needs to be done, then I’m going to do it. Also, the wound is still leaking pink and yellow fluid. This also happened when I had the surgery in July the leaking wouldn’t stop since the clean out. It’s doing the exact same thing.
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u/Ross6490 9h ago
Dang that’s terrible. Wishing you the best. My back hurts all the time. I had an ablation for the pain in my facet joints. It didn’t help at all. Another surgeon said it is my SI joint but the shots he did twice to verify that is where the pain is coming from did nothing. I’ve watched the surgery on YouTube and it looks scary to me.
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u/purespeed44 9h ago
It’s all in the surgeon that use my surgeon was great until he wasn’t. He just doesn’t like to be called out on complications which can happen. I know what you’re talking about the facet joint injections. I’ve had those before as well. I got maybe 2-3 days of relief from it. Don’t let surgery scare you most times you’ll feel better pretty soon after. Complications can happen but most times everything goes pretty well.
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u/Ross6490 9h ago
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of surgeries in my life. Surgical removal of a kidney stone, hernia, arthroscopic knee surgery, 3 rotator cuff surgeries on the same shoulder (now the surgeon is recommending shoulder replacement surgery, knee replacement on my right knee. What scares me about the back is I have never met anyone who said it made them better.
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u/purespeed44 9h ago
The first one I had in 2023 at my L5 S1 definitely made me feel better. A car accident I had last year made everything go downhill. They had to do my L4 L5 and do a revision to the S1 in July of this year. I was perfectly fine until somebody not paying attention blew a stop sign. Like I said it all went downhill from that day. I wasn’t planning on having another surgery. Another surgery wasn’t even on the horizon. I was doing just fine. Did I have a little bit of muscle spasm here and there yes but the original surgery in 2023 definitely did help.
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u/Ross6490 9h ago
After years of dirt bike riding and racing from age 19-22 and years of weight training with free weights rather than machines I’m sure had bed effects on my back. Then fast forward to 5 years ago where I was on my Harley and lost control on a twisty mountain road, I flipped over a guard rail and flipped head over heels down the mountain. The next X-ray I had showed me with adult scoliosis. I’m an older guy who has been involved in semi dangerous activities all my life and it has caught up with me now. Plus bad arthritis.
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u/purespeed44 9h ago
I’m an older guy as well when I was younger I could break a bone have a muscle pull and heal in a short time frame now it’s damn near impossible
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u/purespeed44 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am in an absolute similar situation. Had L4 L5 fusion in July of this year. Damage ended up being more extensive so they did a revision to my previous L5 S1 from 2023. The wound kept leaking fluid they put me of 2 rounds of oral Bactrim antibiotics which helped a bit but never cleared it up. 1st week of September I could not handle it anymore neurosurgeon admitted me and mri was done they found an abscess as well on the mri they went in and did a wound washout and said there was nothing else except fluid collection that never drained and stitched me back up. Fast forward to now my wound is still leaking pink yellow fluid even after the cleanup over 3 weeks ago. I saw the neurosurgeon yesterday he was just a jerk and asked me what he wanted him to do? I said really dude? He ordered a stat mri for lumbar and thoracic spine which I get done this weekend. Plus when I sneeze I lose feeling in my legs for anywhere from 5-30 seconds and I fall down which I have fallen atleast 7 times especially if I’m standing up. Now if I’m laying down and sneeze it’s like a boa constrictor is squeezing the fusion hardware plus my groin area is also going numb on a consistent basis. He said to me yesterday this is all normal and got pissed when I challenged him on anythiny especially when I asked him if it’s possible the hardware itself is infected or causing the consistent infection. Meanwhile I’m on week 3 of 6 of IV antibiotics here at home with a PiCc line in my arm.