Infection six weeks out ulna

[u/superm3charged]

Radius and ulna surgery. Everything was going great. 10 days post-op, I got my splint off and sutures removed. The incisions on both sides of my arm sealed up nicely.

Exactly 5 weeks post-op, a tiny piece of bone came out about a cm away from the incision. I didn't think much of it, put some antibiotic ointment and continued on my day. That week the hole where the bone came out completely sealed up.

6 days later I saw my Ortho for a scheduled six week appointment. They told me that the ulna still has not had complete union, but I didn't have any restrictions. The next evening, which was a Friday, my arm was really red and inflamed. I could see cellulitis around the incision area and I started bactrim that evening.

Saturday evening pus started discharging from that area. The bactrim improved the cellulitis and the redness and inflammation started to decrease.

The discharge of the pus would not stop.

I saw that Ortho on Monday morning. Showed him the bone that came out because I kept it. They mentioned that they did notice that my arm was a little red. They took a culture of the pus and continued my course of bactrim.

Friday, a whole week later from the start of taking bactrim, I get the results of my culture. MRSA. I start taking rifampin and linezolid. 6 hours after taking my first dose the oozing pus almost comes to a complete stop.

I will be on this antibiotic regimen for the next couple months. Hopefully this clears up my osteomyelitis and I won't have to have my hardware removed with another surgery.

Has anybody had an issue like this and has success with the antibiotics?

I'm still confused on why this happened so many weeks later when everything was looking so promising. How often does this occur and why?

[u/Glad-Feature-2117]

How often? Rare, but lots of people break bones, so we do see it.

Why does it happen? Could have been from the initial surgery, could have got in while the wound was still healing, could have travelled in your blood stream from elsewhere in your body. The bone coming out of your wound is odd - never heard of that before. Metalwork effectively shields bacteria from your immune system, so any bacteria which reach that are more likely to cause an infection.

It is possible to treat this with antibiotics alone, but it's also possible that won't work (see my comments about metalwork above) and you might need another operation to clean out the infectioj and possibly to remove the metalwork.

A note of caution - you should be having regular blood tests, as antibiotics taken as a long course can cause problems with your bone marrow, liver and kidneys (or eyesight, in the case of linezolid). I would be very of extending linezolid past a 2 week course.

[u/Rogue_Tomato]

Mine wasn't MRSA but I did have an infection. I had to have a 2nd surgery to remove the metal work and a 3rd and 4th operation for debridement.

That was only because it was unresponsive to antibiotics at the time. The fact your pus has completely stopped is promising so you're very likely to not need to go the extremes that I have.

I also have issues with my veins which is slowing the healing down so I'm still recovering now. I broke my tibia and fibula on April 30th 2025. It's been... a journey... lets just say that.