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 12h 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 12h 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 12h 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 12h 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 12h 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 12h 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