Sternum infection after OHS?

[Debster]

Hello! I was just wondering how many out there had infections in their incision and/or sternum after surgery? My mom had an infection after surgery last year that went to the bone, but thank God did not infect her sternum. She had a picc line put in with vancomycin for weeks-not fun. Anyone else have experiences like this? Thanks-Deb

 

[geebee]

Deb,
I had to have surgery to clear infected tissue under my incision after my last OHS. The infection was into the muscle and took a few hours of surgery to clean up. I now have a couple herniated areas due to the surgeon working on cleaning up the muscle. I apparently had some type of reaction to the sutures used (or that is what the surgeon thinks).
In some ways, the reopening of the incision and all the cleaning work was more painful than OHS. I guess it was a lot of irriation to the muscles.
The surgeon said I was lucky it did not get further into my system.
I actually took advantage of this opportunity and had a plastic surgeon do the surgery. He really made my old scar look much better so every cloud does have a silver lining.
So it does happen but I went through 2 other OHS without incident so who know how common it really is?

 

[Barbara Stewart]

Infection in sternum

Infection in sternum

You bet I did. Last year after my first OHS my incision got infected with MSRA and it ultimately got into my blood stream. I also had a PICC and took vanco for weeks. Nasty stuff. I'm still trying to get my bowel stabilized from the C.Diff I got from all the antibiotics. Frankly, I'm still traumatized, I'm not being dramatic, from that surgery. I almost died from the infection and am still recovering.

Barbara

 

[Der Biermeister]

Gina -- interesting

I had the same reaction to sutures when I had my total knee replacement 5 years ago. It took several weeks to finally clear itself and heal.

 

[Marty]

About the same time I had my operation in '98, a young ( like 35) healthy vigoorous friend of the family had a mitral repair at the same place I had my operation. His heart was and is fine but he fought a wound infection that involved the sternum for more than a year. The heart surgeon sent him to a plastic surgeon who finally got him fixed up. I was told that the plastic surgeon is kept busy by the heart surgeons post op wound problems. My incision and sternum closed with no problems. Its sort of a crap shoot isn't it?

 

[Ross]

You bet I did. Last year after my first OHS my incision got infected with MSRA and it ultimately got into my blood stream. I also had a PICC and took vanco for weeks. Nasty stuff. I'm still trying to get my bowel stabilized from the C.Diff I got from all the antibiotics. Frankly, I'm still traumatized, I'm not being dramatic, from that surgery. I almost died from the infection and am still recovering.

Barbara

I'm in the same club Barb, only mine was a staph infection from an I.V. line. My whole last hosptialization was a traumatic event and I swear I'll never voluntarily walk into one again.