[Maria]

Debra,
Welcome to the forum. Sounds like your general spine situation was well managed prior to the osteomyelitis. Did you by any chance have a procedure done like a cystoscopy anytime previous to this? Only because it's pretty rare I think to have this condition and usually the infection is carried by the vascular system hence reaching this location altho have seen reference to possibly related to UTI (procedures that might be carried out re UTI, tooth infection, pneumonia, skin infection). It sounds like your doctor went over all the possibilities re infection though so wishing you the best w/continued recovery.

I've a friend who had osteomyelitis of the great toe altho she is a diabetic and had an infection (didn't realize it until the pain in the toe) and I've seen a few patients with a diagnosis of osteomyelitis in my working days (RN,NP). My friend had a rather slow somewhat painful recovery tho did OK. This was about 15 years ago.

Glad to hear your doctor was good enough to know when to make the call for further testing and you were seen by a specialist pretty rapidly. Hopefully you're making a good recovery and the infection will be taken care of, pain alleviated and hopefully maybe no need for surgery.

BTW I have autofused at L5S1. I had a discectomy there in '89 and rebulged, then a discectomy at L4 which created more problems for me. In the last 10 years I was a candidate for 3 level fusion, 2 level ADR, and lastly fusion at L5S1 and ADR at L4. I started to feel better around '05 tho and decided not to have a 3rd surgery. After being on Neurontin for 12 years for neuropathies following my second spine surgery I have finally been able to go off this drug as I no longer have painful neuropathies (just numbnes, tingling). I'm still on a low dose pain medication every 24 hours however my OSS believes the autofusion is what has helped me pain wise and I believe so as well. I can now sit at least socially to eat and for a somewhat normal period of time w/o having to get up and move around or squirm in discomfort. For years I couldn't sit all and avoided sitting like the plague following my second spine surgery!

Wanted to mention that during the worst years of my pain that I think was much related to L5S1 I was getting ESIs (epidural steroid injections) for the last 10 years. While they may have done nothing for my bone density at least I had very good pain relief from them. I'm no longer a candidate for ADR at all according to my OSS re facet degeneration and I do have osteoporosis. I've never wanted fusion surgery so if that's out I'm ok with that as well. However if I had to have surgery if that were the only option, it was necessary I'd do what I have to (for neurodeficits/cauda equina, etc). Was hoping L4 would autofuse eventually as well as L5S1 or at least in terms of pain alleviation. If anything I think my spine is more stable because of the autofusion. It definately feels so. Haven't noticed being any shorter~ still 5'2". Can walk easily enough, long enough w/o probs with spine tho did develop bilateral posterior tibial tendonitis in my feet and that affects how long I can walk or be up much more than my back has for a number of years now.

I hope if you're autofusing it will be a relief for you as well as long as it creates no other overriding problem. Take care and please continue to post your progress.