Nexxt Spine review: Spinal fusion surgery hardware

I had a triple spinal cervical fusion surgery (C3-C7) in Arizona in 2017. The surgeon was Dr. Paul Gause from the Spine Institute of Arizona. The surgery was at Thompson Peak Medical Center in Scottsdale, AZ.

According to the Implant Summary Sheet, the hardware used was manufactured by two companies: Nexxt Spine and SeaSpine. Immediately following surgery I had much difficulty swallowing. So much so, in fact, that I had to be re-admitted for several days. Nonetheless, all post-op images (xray & ct) showed everything to be fine. And the swallowing issue improved to some degree over time.

Over the next 12 to 18 months things were fine, and then all of a sudden the swallowing problems worsened. It finally got bad to the point that I had an endoscopy, but everything was fine from the inside, so he ordered an esophogram.

What the esophogram revealed was shocking: both screws at C6 were not only broken in half inside the bone, but on top of that, the mechanism that is supposed to prevent the screws from backing out had failed, and consequently, one of the screws had begun backing out and impinging on my esophagus. Subsequent CTs and MRIs showed the matter to be quite severe.

Soon after, upon reaching out to Nexxt Spine, I received a voicemail from Andy, the president of Nexxt Spine, and during a subsequent call he confirmed that the failed hardware was in fact Nexxt Spine product. This was a dual product failure, and to this day, I struggle terribly with my swallowing!

View 0 more photos