Question: I had my 6th lumbar spine surgery in 7/15. Initially I felt the usual post op pain, but in 9/15 I told the neurosurgeon something didn't feel right. At each follow-up visit I told him that the screws seemed loose, I was in more pain than before and I had excruciating headaches. Finally in 2/16 a C-T scan was done showing nothing has fused. My surgery was a posterior fusion from T-10 to L-3. The C-T scan also showed a fluid collection. In September 2016 I had another C-T scan and it showed that the screws were in fact loose (he pointed it out to me in the c-t scan) and said nothing about the fact there is a dura tear of 2cm by 6cm. I have severe headaches everyday to the point of vomiting. My back, buttocks, and leg pain are much worse. He wrote a prescription for facet injections from T-9 to T-12, but the Ohio BWC denied this treatment twice as an unacceptable procedure. I take 2 Tylenol every 6 hours, ice pack my head and back which provides minimal relief. What can be done to help me. My doctor does not want to do surgery to repair the fusion for another 8 months.

Dear Dr. Tayal:

One item that I forgot to mention is when I had my 5th lumbar spine surgery in 2009 the surgeon performed biopsies because I had the dura tear, he removed hardware, and prior to that surgery I would run high fevers and my lumbar spine would swell and turn red. The biopsies were positive for staph infection and I had a port put in to receive IV vancomycin. I had a severe allergic reaction to the vancomycin and was put on doxycycline for 8 months, and then taken off of it.

My current Dr. does not think I still have a staph infection but they never biopsyed the fluid collection or any other tissue to see if it was still present.

Besides all of the other symptoms I previously told you about I still do have fevers from 99.0 to 102.00 when my back pain is really bad.

My question is if you've been diagnosed with a closed staph infection and a debridement procedure was never done, are you ever cured from the staph infection?