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Osteomyelitis

(Bone Infection)

By

The Manual's Editorial Staff

Reviewed/Revised Feb 2023
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What is osteomyelitis?

Osteomyelitis is a bone infection.

  • Bone is living tissue and can get infected like any other part of your body

  • Infection gets into a bone through your blood or from nearby infected tissue or an open wound

  • You may have pain in your bone, fever, and weight loss

  • You'll need x-rays and maybe a CT (computed tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

  • You’ll need weeks of antibiotics and possibly surgery to treat osteomyelitis

With a bad infection, parts of the bone may die, which makes the infection harder to treat.

Sometimes the infection spreads out from your bone into nearby skin and muscle.

What causes osteomyelitis?

What are the symptoms of osteomyelitis?

Symptoms of osteomyelitis include:

  • Fever

  • Pain in the infected bone

  • Sore, red, warm, swollen area over the infected bone

  • Weight loss and tiredness

How can doctors tell if I have osteomyelitis?

How do doctors treat osteomyelitis?

Doctors treat osteomyelitis with:

  • Antibiotics given by vein

You may need the antibiotics for 4 to 8 weeks, especially if you've had the infection a long time.

If you're very sick or there's a lot of dead bone, doctors may:

  • Do surgery to remove infected and dead bone

NOTE: This is the Consumer Version. DOCTORS: VIEW PROFESSIONAL VERSION
VIEW PROFESSIONAL VERSION
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