Shoreline

Oh yeah, I have heard of non union and have 5 levelsthat never fsed. The hardwareholds things in place untill it snaps. No hardare is designed to bear your weight forever, If a fusion is succesful all the weight is taken off the hardware. But in early Xrays they base a succesful fusion on flexion and extension Xrays, as long as the hardware holds things in place they say everything is fine.

Once screw heads start shearing off and screws toggle in holes you start to get more and more movement, crunching, grinding, squeking and pain. My second surgery was a fusion, L3-4- 5, I sheared off both screws at l5 and crushed the nerves. They went back in and the screws at l3 were both damaged and the discs above and below were shredded. The doc said the old fusion materal flaked out like dried fish.

They went in to revise the fusion and I woke up 11 hours later fused from
L1-S1 and this fusion has failed, 90% non union, hardware is already broken, Screws toggle in the holes in my scarum and I crunch grind and squeek with every step.

I now have grade 2 spondiliothesis where everything above my sacrum has shifted 50% off S1. If it continues It could topple completely off my sacum and shear nerve roots, sever spinal cord and the aorta and iliac arteries that split off right at L5-S1.

Ask for flooscopy of you flexing and extending, they can check for instability/spondyliothesis and know what kind of risk your at if you do nothing.

It's not going to get better with anything other than surgery, it wll continue to deterioate untill you break more hardware and the pain can't be continously managed because it continues to get worse and when it shifts or grinds it sends a jolt through my body. Even with the pump and agressive increases, The best relief I'm getting now is abou 40% which is slowly declining. What levels are we talking about? Cervicle options are a little different. Those discs are so small you can sponatnously fuse from bone rubbing bone, because once the hardware snaps nothing is keeping the disc gaps open. That's actually a good thing.You develop arthritic spurs, discogenic pain returns, nerve pain returns, etc etc.

You can brace to protect the area, live with it untill you can't manage the pain any longer or revise it which usually means lenghtening because of the exsiting hardware, inability to remove screw tips,stress already put on the vertabrea and I forgot vertebral fractures that occur when only one screw in a vertabrea is broken and all the weight bearing is shifted to one side. That can split a vertabrea like a log. You may need Crosslinking to prevent twsiting, but it all depends on what levels are involved.. More to come about revisions after I know what levels.
Really sorry, There is a web site out there called Pedicle screwed. That's nothing but failed hardware and snapped screws and what follows.
Take care, Dave