Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffSeptic arthritis is an infection in a joint. Bacteria, or less commonly fungi, can spread from other infected areas in your body to a joint. Sometimes bacteria infect only the joint, leaving other areas of your body unharmed.
In septic arthritis, germs infiltrate your joint — usually just one — and damage it, causing severe pain. Bacteria most commonly target your knee, though other joints can be affected by septic arthritis, including your ankle, hip, wrist, elbow and shoulder.
Young children and older adults are most likely to develop septic arthritis. To treat septic arthritis and limit joint damage, your doctor will give you antibiotic drugs and drain the infected fluid from your joint.
