musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders
Osteomyelitis
Symptoms and Signs of Osteomyelitis
Patients withacute osteomyelitisof peripheral bones usually experience weight loss, fatigue, fever, and localized warmth, swelling, erythema, and tenderness. Vertebral osteomyelitiscauses localized back pain and tenderness with paravertebral muscle spasm that is often continuous and unresponsive to conservative treatment. More advanced disease may cause compression of the spinal cord or nerve roots, with radicular pain and extremity weakness or numbness. Patients are often afebrile. Chronic osteomyelitiscauses intermittent (months to many years) bone pain, tenderness, and draining sinuses. 