Cnidium wrote: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.
Cnidium thanks for your informative answer. I was very dissapointed by the lack of clarity I got at the hospital I should have went elsewhere. However I did see an implant Doctor yesterday following my release from the hospital and he thought it was epidmitis and didn't note any signs of implant infection. So i'll just keep an eye on it and hopefully things will resolve.