[Text on screen: Ohio State Health & Discovery
Symptoms of periprosthetic joint infection]

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[Text on screen: Douglas Chonko, DO
Orthopedic Surgeon
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Douglas Chonko, DO:
Symptoms for periprosthetic joint infections, the number one symptom is going to be pain. Pain that's out of proportion, pain that you weren't expecting, pain that continues to linger. Oftentimes patients will get pain at night or they'll get this constant pain. 

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Rather than looking at patients, if you compare patients that are doing okay after a joint replacement, pain is also a part of their recovery. However, their pain is going to be more associated with activity, after therapy and it will slowly keep improving for them. Most patients after about four weeks are pain free as well with a hip or a knee replacement. With PJIs, you can see that pain linger. It will extend into the months. There are other symptoms that we all associate with infections as well, not only pain, and that's going to include redness, continued drainage around that incision. Incisions should be dry after approximately two to three days at the very most. And the drainage that you get in those first couple days should be relatively minimal.

Systemic symptoms can be something that we will see with periprosthetic joint infections also. Those symptoms can be fevers and chills, feeling like you have the flu, feeling run down, you're lethargic, you're very tired. Symptoms that just don't make sense to you or you feel like something's coming on, you want to pay attention to those things, because if they are included with your pain, they could very well be indicating that you may have a PJI. Patients that develop a periprosthetic joint infection, what really is vitally important is getting back to your surgeon and to your doctors right away. The earlier that we diagnose that PJI and the earlier that we can treat that, the higher chance of success and the higher likelihood that we can treat you with the DAIR procedure.

And the DAIR procedure has a equal outcome to what I described as our two stage procedure where we have to take the implants out and put temporary antibiotic spacers in, and the earliest that we can re-implant currently is about three months with that, where a DAIR procedure you maintain or you keep your hip or your knee replacement. So early diagnosis is key. Here at Ohio State University, we receive referrals from all over the state and out of state, so many of these patients don't get in quite early enough to be candidates for DAIR. 

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So you can reach out sooner, you can go back to your primary surgeon, the surgeon that did your initial surgery as quickly as you're suspecting this, and your likelihood of success and our ability to do a DAIR procedure goes way up.

[Text on screen: Ohio State Health & Discovery
For more information, visit:
wexnermedical.osu.edu/orthopedics]

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