Osteomyelitis

I completely understand how you feel. Just lashed year I had four surgeries for Osteo of my jaw. The last one being an excision of the left mandible. And I'm still on IV anabiotic's. Having been a surgery nurse for more than 20 years, I've dealt with patients with Osteomyelitis before. I can tell you it is a very tenacious bug, and very difficult to get rid of. As far as testing for it in the way of x-rays, there is a nuclear medicine scan that is very good but only works before you get surgical treatment. The infectious disease doctors and the surgeons have to go by your symptomology. How you're feeling, fever, pain, and the blood tests usually come up after you've started to get sick again. So it is very difficult for them to know when they have totally eradicated it. That's usually when you don't get sick anymore or have any more pain. I wish I had a magic answer for you, but there just isn't one. Don't get discouraged it does go away we just have to be more tenacious than the bug

Hello Debra. I believe you are asking about how to tell if a relapse is happening, perhaps an inital diagnosis? I could write for days but just a few things now. Average time for inital diagnosis is one month from infection (this fits my case exactly). My case was a bit easier on the Docs since my osteomyelitis was hospital aquired. One month after having a posterior cervical fusion I woke up with a pillow soaked in pus and I had a sinus track about half the diameter of a pencil right in the middle of my incision. I went back to the Doc with a bit of understanding of post operative infections but never having heard the word "osteomyelitis". Usually they start you out on antibiotics and see how it goes before debridement but with me it was my first round of debridement the next day, a bone sample was taken. About a week later I had a visit with an infectious disease Doctor (another new thing). After about a half hour of intense questioning I was told I had osteomyelitis from the resistant form of staph aureus. Ten days later I was back in the hospital for more debridement as two abcesses had formed. He cut a lot away. The Doctors suspected osteo right away because of the recent surgery and the sinus tract. Lacking those clues it would have been tough as I did not have any other symptoms that I could not attribute to post operative healing. Almost 3 years later I am told I have chronic osteomyelitis and I will be on Keflex for the rest of my life. My blood tests are clear and imaging does not show an indication for osteo but they say I am chronic due to me complaining of symptoms. These symptoms are mainly malaise, weakness,low stamina, and constant pain. A large part of my pain is due to the effects of the debridements. Every Doc I see even in casual conversation shakes their head when talking about osteomyelitis, just not a good infection (are any good) to get).

It seems to be that the ESR (eryth. sedimentation rate) and CRP (C-reactive protein) blood tests do a very good job both in diagnosing osteomyelitis and monitoring the progress of treatment.  At least it seems to have worked for me with OM in my foot due to a diabetic foot ulcer that was infected.

My diagniosis was one month after my infection (my operation). I did not have to wait for any blood work or X-Rays as a bone sample was taken at the time of my first debridement. My Doctor went right to debridement, I mean immeditally. Even though I went to debridement so fast they did not get it all,10 days later back for more debridement as two abcesses had formed next to my spinal cord. This time the debridement was even more extensive. Even when all testing says my osteo is under control I suffer daily from the debridement done to the back of my neck.I sometimes wonder why they did not give the antibiotics a chance to work before hitting me so hard with debridement.