I sympathise. I have broke my ankle six years ago and had plates and pins, these were removed a few months later due to a pin sticking out and being quite uncomfortable. Unfortunately I have had six surgeries in total so far due to long term pain and my last surgery was ten weeks ago. I am pretty sure I will have another one at least.
In hindsight I wish someone had told me to accept the pain and get on with it as I am in a much worse position now than I was five years ago. I am currently in a position were I am in continual pain still but now my surgeons have to keep going in to fix issues, which I believe are usually result of the last surgery I had.
After having the plates and pins removed I suffered with severe instability and so had to have further surgery to 'strengthen' the ankle. That said I know a few people who have had their plates and pins out and have very good mobility and very little pain.
Personally I if I could do it all again I would have waited a considerable amount of time before having the first surgery and everyone since. But no one ever said to me at the age of 23 years old that my ankle would never be the same again and whilst it seems obvious to me now I genuinely thought that after I had had my surgery and my physio that I would be back to 'normal'. If I had known then what I know now I would have stuck with it. But that is my experience and both my surgeons tell me that I was just very unlucky.
The swelling after the first surgery for me lasted for months, maybe even a year and a friend of mine still gets swelling after years.
Many people suffer with pins/plates being uncomfortable and many people have them removed successfully. It is not an emergency I am sure but