Arthritic Sepsis

[akwilliams]

My mother is 57 has rheumatoid arthritis, lupus & diabetic for over 20 years.  My mother has had 2 heart attacks with 6 stints & a stroke last October.  After all of her health problems she was still 100% independent until 01/29/2008 when she was having left hip pain the week prior & she thought it was her arthritis flaring up after extreme pain & unable move in the bed & walk without assistance we took her to the emergency room where her temperature was 103.5, sugar level was 496 & white blood count was extremely high.  My mom was in the ICU for the 1st week where my mom was continuing to complain of hip pain & the after several X-rays, MRI's, test, hip aspiration & surgery to have the hip joint drained she was diagnosed with arthritic sepsis, staphylococcus aureus & group B strep. My mother is still having hip pain unable to move without being lifted from the bed and put in a wheelchair.  She is currently in a transition care facility going through extensive physical therapy and getting antibiotics through a pick line every eight hours.  My mother is having a 2nd hip aspiration tomorrow to make sure there is no more infection but her last blood test a few days ago showed her sedimentation rate at 142.     My question is what causes sepsis in the blood and what are the chances this will reoccur?

[JainMD]

Hi,
The comments suggest that after injecting saline solution when they were not able to aspirate anything then they decided to get imaging done. In imaging it is mentioned that there the fluid injected in joint capsule is going out from the joint space to outside space back of joint which is leading to collapse of left hip joint. A CT study is needed further.
Keep me posted if you have queries.
Bye.

[akwilliams]

Thank you for your comment I have another question if you are able to answer.  My mother had another hip aspiration to check for any synovial fluid in her hip since the surgery 3 weeks ago to drain the infection. After 45 minutes they were unable to withdrawl any synoval fluid and did a "wash" twice where they injected saline solution into the area but was unable to even extract that out.  The doctor who performed this aspiration wrote this down on the orthopedic doctor's orders & I wanted to know what this meant in non medical terms. " Imaging reveals extravasation of contrast into a posterior space with complete collapse of the left hip joint, possible CT scan needed"

[JainMD]

Hi,
In the blood there would be an overwhelming response to curb the micro-organism entered in the blood via any route like faeco-oral route, air droplets or due to any injury. This response releases lots of inflammatory mediators in blood which produces symptoms of sepsis.
If the infection is not treated with appropriate antibiotics then there are chances of infection recurring.
Keep me posted if you have any queries.
Bye.