What is "osteomyelitis"?

What is "osteomyelitis"?

Marc Darrow (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Joint Rehabilitation Sports Medical Center, Inc. ) gives expert video advice on: What are some specific types of chronic pain?; What is "somatic pain"?; How is somatic pain treated? and more...

Osteomyelitis is really a combination of a few words. One is “osteo” which means bone and “itis” which means inflammation. The term strictly though refers to more of a infection in the bone. Now in the bone we have what are called diversing canals which are little caverns through the bones and we have trabeculli which are little openings in the bones and when bacteria gets into these and infect the bone it's very difficult to get rid of them. We often have to use IV antibiotics. Often times with osteomyelitis a person will lose the infection at least in terms of the white count in the blood going down so it looks like the infection is gone and then maybe five years later it will reappear. It's just very difficult to remove infection from bone.