Hello!
The most important thing is to avoid infections and to maintain complete asepsis and follow perfect hygiene which you might be doing by now.
Some people have less resistance and the resistance also decreases with intake of continuous antibiotics. You would need to check your antibody levels. I would also suggest you to eat healthy and diet rich in proteins and calcium.
I would suggest you to consider blood culture and also the culture of the tissue surrounding the implant and also culture of the pus.
Follow up with a microbiologist along with your regular orthopedician and infectious diseases specialist.
Take care!
I have had blood cultures, pus cultures, and cultures around the implant with each surgery.
My orthopedic specialist wants to use two antibiotic spacers, the one that is in now, and exchange it with another one at six weeks. Then follow up at 8 weeks if inflammatory markers are normal, then re-implant with the metal.
My infectious disease specialist wants to go with at least 8 weeks of antibiotics, iv, along with the antibiotic spacer. Then wait about a month without antibiotics before re-implanting with the metal to see if any signs of infections show up before the final metal implant.
One other question, has any research been done to find out exactly how long the antibiotic spacers contiune to release antibiotics locally? Why is six weeks the magic number, does it contiune to release antibiotics at effective levels for more than six weeks or do we know?
Sorry about all the questions, but I have been fighting this infection for over 5 months and 5 surgeries.
Thanks so much!
Steve