Infection signs and symptoms

[Hillywilly]

Anyone have any knowledge of additional symptoms of infection besides this?:

"Increasing pain at the surgical site or over prosthetic parts, fever, cellulitis, fluctuance around parts of the device, or purulent drainage from the wound, especially after pressing on implant parts, are signs that an infection is present."

[Pprico]

Anyone have any knowledge of additional symptoms of infection besides this?:

"Increasing pain at the surgical site or over prosthetic parts, fever, cellulitis, fluctuance around parts of the device, or purulent drainage from the wound, especially after pressing on implant parts, are signs that an infection is present."

I suggest you dont waste time and immediately go to doctor

[Hillywilly]

Anyone have any knowledge of additional symptoms of infection besides this?:

"Increasing pain at the surgical site or over prosthetic parts, fever, cellulitis, fluctuance around parts of the device, or purulent drainage from the wound, especially after pressing on implant parts, are signs that an infection is present."

I suggest you dont waste time and immediately go to doctor

Was in the hospital for 2 days they didn't really know recieved iv antibiotics and sent home with antibiotics. The only question now is do I fly across the country for the 3rd time this year for additional follow up? My implanting physcian doesn't think it's an infection of the IPP but rather epidimitis or superficial issues. Anyways the only symptom i had was swelling of the scrotum which could be due to a number of things my labs were normal and the urology department at my local hospital doesn't know much about implants. My swelling has abated quite a bit as has the redness but some still remains no pain though.

[Gt1956]

Hillywilly, I wish there was better advice than what I've already given you. We know where Hakky is but you say fly across the country. Is he really that far away?
Best I can do is relate an infection my wife had. She had a abdominal injection that got infected. Had several lumps that eventually came to the surface. We were scared shitless. For several months she went to a "wound specialist" twice a week. He kept the sores open & spread powder into them. Kept them clean & packed with gauze. Freaky watching a dr poke his fingers into my wifes belly while swabbing around with gauze. Never gave her antibiotics that I remember. They eventually closed but left a couple of large scars. I forget the infections name but I think it was staph.
If flying to Hakky is impractical. How about seeing if you can fine a wound specialist in your area. I think they specialize in people that have mobility issues & get serious bed sores. As in our case. We had something outside of the skills of most of the medical people. I think our primary dr sent us to him. I'm thinking he realized that he couldn't treat her. Sometimes the best advice a dr can give you is to point you towards someone else. Many drs egos won't let them do that.
For what little it might be worth. It sounds like your current antibiotics are helping.
Burn up the internet searching for this type of dr. He really saved us.

[wolfpacker]

Is this relating to your surgery from April? I didn't know it was possible for infection to show up after so long?

[Hillywilly]

Hillywilly, I wish there was better advice than what I've already given you. We know where Hakky is but you say fly across the country. Is he really that far away?
Best I can do is relate an infection my wife had. She had a abdominal injection that got infected. Had several lumps that eventually came to the surface. We were scared shitless. For several months she went to a "wound specialist" twice a week. He kept the sores open & spread powder into them. Kept them clean & packed with gauze. Freaky watching a dr poke his fingers into my wifes belly while swabbing around with gauze. Never gave her antibiotics that I remember. They eventually closed but left a couple of large scars. I forget the infections name but I think it was staph.
If flying to Hakky is impractical. How about seeing if you can fine a wound specialist in your area. I think they specialize in people that have mobility issues & get serious bed sores. As in our case. We had something outside of the skills of most of the medical people. I think our primary dr sent us to him. I'm thinking he realized that he couldn't treat her. Sometimes the best advice a dr can give you is to point you towards someone else. Many drs egos won't let them do that.
For what little it might be worth. It sounds like your current antibiotics are helping.
Burn up the internet searching for this type of dr. He really saved us.

I may visit a local implant guy just to get a data point. Definitely know what you mean by Dr. Ego thing though big problem:/ thing is I don’t have any open wounds so no idea how an infection could have occured.

[Hillywilly]

Is this relating to your surgery from April? I didn't know it was possible for infection to show up after so long?

I believe so feeling a bit lazy at the moment so not gonna search it but I believe they can show up up to 5 years post op but usually they are the virulent infections that appear beyond 3 months.

[Gt1956]

It's not that uncommon to get an infection without a wound. All the viruses & bacteria live in our bodies as well as out side our bodies.
Just for some obscure reason they choose now to go wild. Could be that the surgery antibiotics had kept them under control. Maybe you had a minor cold that gave them an opportunity. No one will ever know.

[newbie443]

Infection is always a risk with any thing in our body. Artificial knee, hip, pin and staples. And implants. For implants highest risk is right after surgery and that decreases over the year. More rapidly early on but at one year the infection rate is very low and stays at that level for as long as you have an implant.

[Cnidium]

Remind me what type of tests you have received? I think most people have recommended a culture test. However, there are blood tests where the sample can be taken from you finger and they measure for white blood cells levels. Essentially, if the the levels are above a certain concentration per ml of blood, then there is an infection somewhere in the body.

While accurate, the downfall of this test is that it could trigger a positive result from an infection unrelated to with what your dealing with (such as if you had a concurrent sinus infection). IIRC, it can detect white blood cells specific to bacteria vs virus vs fungus, but not separate types within each group (such as ecoli vs staph).

If I were in your shoes, I would be getting this done asap (my apologies if you have already).

These arent perfect tests (neither is culture). Even tests with a 95% accuracy rate have, obviously, a 5% false positive or false negative result. However, culture is has its own risks such as 1. clinic not even being able to run a culture test because they cant reach a sample of the infection 2. the lab fucks up and unknowingly kills the bacterial culture (many of them are actually very fragile outside of the human body) 3. the lab staff reads the culture plate wrong even though the positive or negative is clearly there if you a machine was reading it instead

Lastly, if your hospital hasnt run white blood cell blood tests (i think they are called lukocytes), thats because many hospitals in the US are ass backwards. There are a scary amount of the hospitals in the US that are 30+ years behind in their pathogen testing methods.

PS: I could be wrong on the above.