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Osteomyelitis
Category: Illness or disabilities
Type
Involuntary
Introduction and description
Osteomyelitis or OM - is infection and inflammation of the bone or bone marrow. It can be usefully subclassified on the basis of the causative organism - pyogenic bacteria or mycobacteria - and the route, duration and anatomic location of the infection. For example, osteomyelitis of the jaws is different in several respects from osteomyelitis present in a long bone. Vertebral osteomyelitis is another possible presentation.
Symptoms
The symptoms are the same as in all the other bone related diseases - pain and inflammation. Please see Bone and skeletal diseases for more information on the symptoms.
Causes
The cause is thought to be known - bacteria -
- S. aureus,
- Enterobacter species,
- group A and B Streptococcus species,
- Salmonella species and
- Haemophilus influenzae.
Although, the complications of bacteriophages may add new ideas to this picture.
Each of these bacteria do have their own sections, with suggestions on how to combat them, but it might be more helpful to go to the section on Bone and skeletal disease which discusses all the likely causes of these diseases in a more general way.