Hardware infection- any experience appreciated

Hello

I broke my ankle in Jan had an external fixator and no plate or pins and very lucky no infection.... It must be terrible for u to be going through this hopefully all will be good in the end love maria x

Hi 

I had a similar situation with my ankle break - although the infection came on earlier than in your case. I broke my ankle in April 16 and had plates and pins inserted to fix. 

The first infection started in May 16, I spent a week in hospital to have IV antibiotics and a vacuum dressing on the wound site, which hadn’t healed. I was Non weight bearing until July 16. 

Basically for the next 12 months I was on and off antibiotics as the infection flared up. My surgeon said to wait as long as possible before having the hardware removed. 

I’ve had the plate and pins removed in October of this year - which all went smoothly and I was up and about quickly afterwards.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve had problems with infection too - hopefully the hardware removal all the antibiotics will have fixed it!

Good luck with your recovery x 

I really hate this happened to you. I had an infection two weeks after surgery. Hospitalized for a week with IV meds and was then treated with IV infusions for 42 days at home. The infectious disease group advised to remove hardware but I followed the surgeons advice to leave it in place and the meds worked. However, I had no idea it could take months for an infection to show up. I see the infectious disease group in January and my surgeon next week. I am really struggling to walk correctly. The infection caused the healing process to go on for months and during this time my ankle did not heal correctly. It has been 5 months since I suffered an open fracture to my ankle and I am somewhat discouraged. However, being able to wear sneakers and walking for short distances with a cane is huge for me. 

I hope you begin to heal and can bounce back more quickly than I.  

I am interested in your recovery and hope to see some updates or possible advice from other forum members. 

Karen 

Ugh  you have really been through it too.

I also had no understanding of how once you have an infection that u must monitor it to make sure it does not continue to come back after rounds of antibiotics. 

I’m waiting to see if infection went into my bone and to see if antibiotics cleared it for now or to see if I need to go for more rounds of antibiotics.

Crazy right? 

Thanks so much for sharing your story - hopefully with our removal of hardware - in addition to antibiotics the infection will be stopped. Scary stuff. Please keep in touch and let me know what infectious disease doc says in January. Fingers crossed .

Sorry for your infected foot. I am almost six months out and now am having some Issues with my foot also I had a joint fusion due to arthritis. I'm thinking my hardware may need to come out. Thanks for the heads up and I hope all works out for you!