I am really concerned. Last year about 6 weeks after my TKR my knee became more painful than usual. It was still swollen ( and remains so), stiff and I was having issues walking. Additionally, I just wasn't feeling well. Since I lived alone and had a manual transmission car I couldn't really drive so I called 911.
I was transported to a free standing ER and then ultimately taken to the hospital where I was admitted for observation for 3 days as they thought I had an infecion. Blood work was taken the evening of my admission and the following day. During my stay the doctors were in contact with my OS.
I had been told that the day of my admission my blood work was high and then was told that the next day it was no longer elevated which meant I didn't have an infecion. While they initially had mentioned that they wanted to aspirate my knee the PA in the hospital decided not to because my surgery was too recent and they didn't want any potential complications.
I never got the hospital records- never really thought I needed to because when I was discharged no one really said too much besides to follow up with my doctor.
I decided to obtain my records which I just received. On the day of my admission my wbc was somewhat elevated at 10.94 but had gone back to normal range the next day. However, my sed rate westergren was 48 on day 1 and 41 on day 2 both of which are in the high range. And as I indicated in my first post the sed rate is now 43. Still high.
Not only that but my discharge diagnosis was Cellulitis.
So, my questions are: Isn't cellulitis an infecion? Also, is it possible that back then the lab results were high simply due to inflammation after surgery? Or based on the lab work and diagnosis that I really did have an infecion.
I am really upset because no one including my OS who I saw 2 weeks after my hospital stay said not a word about a possible infection given my continued elevated labs. Nor did my OS order any more testing to definitively rule out an infecion. I feel like no one took either the blood work or cellulitis diagnosis seriously at the time and if they had I may not have needed a 2 stage revision but rather only a wash out and course of antibiotics.