a question, has anyone had allergic reactions after adr? fusion?

[nomorepain]

within the 1st 6mos after my adr surgery I developed a seizure disorder. it had been going on for a sometime before I was diagnosed as they were happening at night. I had a gran mall at a superbowl party and I've been dealing with it ever since. maybe a trade off maybe not. I'm not complaining or want pity in anyway as I would do my surgery again in a heartbeat. I'll probably never know what's causing them.
what I'm after is has anyone else developed this condition, has anyone here had any allergic reactions to adr's or fusion cages? or screws and rods?

[vnf]

Wow, that's awful.
I did a Google search:
seizures after spinal surgery
to see if anything came up.
Not sure if it's you or not, but I seen one other poster asking this same question.
Very scary.
Hope you find an answer to this problem.

[sahuaro]

That is, indeed, awful.
I would guess that if you were allergic to the materials in the ADRs, you would have pain and swelling at the site. But a question in the literature has been raised about particles from the ADR getting into the bloodstream.
I do know that my allergies to air=borne allergens have been out of control the past two years and occasionally I do wonder about my stainless steel ADR (which by definition has nickel) and particulates which have raised my general sensitivity level. But I try not to think about it because I wouldn't give up my ADR.
Have your doctors suggested a connection?

[Maria]

I was thinking the onset was more related to some type of trauma or insult to the brain during the surgery even like a very abbreviated lack of oxygen or something.

Grand mal seizures are nothing to sneeze at as I have been witness to a number of them both in my professional life (RN,NP) and personal life with close relationship with friend/family with Epilepsy.

After I had laser eye surgery in 2001 and about a month later I experienced floaters in my peripheral vision bilaterally. Rushed to ER and off to Opthamologist from there who asked if I had a history of migraines. I said I'd never had them or even a severe headache (except after my two myelograms and one spinal tap re spinal fluid leaks).. anyway he said "you're going to get them as these specific floaters were indicative of this... and sure enough about 2 months later I got the most severe headache I'd ever had outside of post myelogram headaches. I was told the onset could be related to the laser eye surgery, could be related to starting to lose estrogen (perimenopause back then), and possibly the Methadone. Well couldn't undo laser eye surgery and loved the results at the time, wasn't going off Methadone either as pain relief was so great compared to pre Methadone (and I had tried MS Contin which helped the pain but created some other things I couldn't tolerate). So was left with Migraines for about a solid 12-14 year period. First few years they were really severe and very frequent. I rarely have them now (post menopausal) though occasionally.

I wouldn't give up your ADRs either because why bother if you don't even know for certain that has anything to do with the seizure disorder and even if you did give them up as you say that'd be like ruining a good surgical outcome for the unknown chance that you may or may not stop having seizures not to mention what you might set yourself up for re more back probs/pain. I understand you're not even considering this possibility just rather questioning what might have sparked the seizure activity and if anyone else might have had some type of allergic response to their ADR material Have you found any documented cases of any allergic type of reactions at all to ADRs or hardware utilized? I'm thinking it's still kind of a young surgical approach even though utilized abroad for over 20 years now (maybe 30ish?) so I'd imagine that things might have started to show up in documentation if patients are tracked long enough by the surgeon such as in the trials.

I'm guessing you've had a PET scan of your brain and all the diagnostic tests and such. Are your seizures fairly well under control with whatever anti seizure med you're using? Hope so. What does your Neurologist think in regard to possible causation?

[nomorepain]

thanks for replying, for the most part the seizures are under control with heavy meds. I do have a few a year, all tolerable. was just wondering if anyone else had anything close to this