Osteomyelitis in toddler

[Lala2022]

Hi all,

just looking for some reassurance. We’ve been in and out of hospital past week. Non-weight bearing son in agony. He’s only 2.3 years so couldn’t communicate well what was wrong. They diagnosed osteomyelitis of femur initially from xray but then MRI of that area came back clear. Note - they did not MRI whole leg! Despite how traumatic it was for DS they then diagnosed as irritable hip and sent us home.

still no improvement a week later so they wanted to MRI his hip. I pushed for whole leg MRI as my partner and I were sure he was sore in his lower leg. This afternoon confirmation of osteomyelitis in tibia.

just looking for some good news stories please 🙏

My son had osteomyelitis in his tibia (4 years ago when he was 8). It was really painful initially - spent over 2 weeks in hospital on iv antibiotics. It took about 2 months before he could move freely. Fully recovered, he has developed into a very able sports person and doesn’t feel any after effects. He is monitored every 6 months for leg length discrepency as unfortunately it has damaged his growth plate. He is going to have to have operations to try and correct this in the future. I hope the antibiotics kick in soon.

My son had this when he was 3 - diagnosed when he couldn't stand. No cause ever found. He had an operation on his lower leg to clean the infection and had a cast for a few weeks while it healed.

No ill effects after this whatsoever. He's now a strapping 23 year old.
Hope your little lad is ok.

Thanks @beckypv and @LegArmpits 🙏. He had basically been in hosp for over a week on IV anti’s now. They were going to send him to Royal Children’s to insert a PIC line for anti’s at home but seem to think it may just be okay to be treated where we are - no GA would be a positive.

@LegArmpits sounds like you had hardly any other symptoms either. Our has had no real fever or other issues apart from looking a bit pale.

His is in his lower-middle tibia and bone doesn’t seem to have been impacted. So glad to hear both your kids going okay 😊.

My son had a picc line inserted after about day 5 - the cannula kept getting clogged and it was quite traumatic to keep having a new one fitted. The picc line was excellent and probably lasted 10 days which made the whole process much smoother. He was having iv every 6hrs so being able to do it while he was asleep through the picc was really helpful.

Eek. Yes the 2 cannulations so far have been extremely traumatic so hopefully no clogs for us 🤞

Hey @beckypv - I take it from your response that your son was still feeling some pain in in the initial 2 week IV antibiotic period? We are day 3/4 of IV antibiotics and he was saying it was sore today (has never been able to articulate this before now as only 2 years old). He is also still yet to weightbear. Did it take some time for your son’s pain to go away and for him to walk?

He definitely felt a lot of pain over the first week - he couldn’t bare to move it. He had a drain put in to reduce some of the liquid accumulating on his shin area. From looking back at pictures I think it was 10 days post admission that he managed to sit in a chair and he didn’t weight bare for a few days after that. I remember the physios coming in and him refusing to stand and getting very upset. It took the next week to get hobbling around and we had to show he could get up and down stairs to be initially let home (18 days post admission - and probably 15days post diagnosis)

@beckypv thanks for responding 🙏. They wanted my son to walk yesterday but he’s a way off yet.

I know someone in his mid 70s who had it as a young child. I would imagine treatment has improved but he is fit as a fiddle, didn't have any long term effects on him. Hope things improve now you have the diagnosis.

I had it at 9 and made a full recovery. I can't give you a lot of details as I don't remember everything clearly but I think I was an impatient for a couple of weeks, then on mediation for about 6 months. I'm pretty sure they never identified a cause.

I had this as a child, 40 years ago. Hospitalised and given injected antibiotics. No long term effects at all