I had surgery on my leg which required me to have a brace…

I'm very sorry to hear about your injury and the problems you are continuing to have with your leg. It must be very frustrating. While I do not have the benefit of being able to examine you or see your Xrays to understand your injury more, I will try to answer you question the best I can.

In your situation, it is important to determine what is actually causing your pain now. Broken or loose hardware can cause some minor irritation, but would probably not explain the tremendous pain you are describing. I would be more concerned for other causes like post-traumatic arthritis of the joints around the bone you broke, infection, malunion or nonunion (a failure of healing in the bones or healing in a suboptimal position), or even pain syndromes such as complex regional pain syndrome which can occur after certain fractures.

When you have a fracture fixed with surgery, the plates, screws, and pins that the surgeon uses to put everything back together are designed to last long enough for the fracture to heal, but they do not last forever. With most fractures, it is a race to see what will happen first: the bone healing or the screws breaking. Most of the time, the bones heal first so even if the hardware does eventually break or loosen, it doesn't matter because the bone itself has healed. The fact that you have broken and loose screws 43 years after your surgery is not surprising, nor is it a sign anything went wrong. Most surgeons do not routinely remove broken or loose hardware unless it is definitely causing a problem, so it is not surprising your doctor did not offer a second surgery to remove the broken pins when you first found them.

The best treatment in your case depends on what the underlying cause of your continued trouble is. If it is not the pins, then a second surgery to remove them might expose you to risk and not make anything better. The best next step is to have a conversation with a surgeon you are comfortable with (it does not have to be the original surgeon you were seeing!) where you can have a thorough exam and discuss the possible causes of your current symptoms and the best approach to improving them.

I hope this information has been helpful! Please let me know if you have any additional questions! (If I have answered your question fully, please don't forget to rate by clicking the stars above! Remember that we can continue this conversation until you are completely satisfied even after you have submitted a rating!)

(Note: All communication on Justanswer.com is for general information purposes only. No physician-patient relationship is established or implied nor is this information to be used to diagnose or treat any condition. Please consult with your personal doctor before making any medical decisions)