My 22 year old son woke up Sunday morning and felt some pain in his middle knuckle (no trauma to the area). As the day progressed it got much worse became red and swollen with limited mobility and significant pain. He went to the emergency room, received oral antibiotics and was send home. On Monday when he returned for a follow-up visit he was admitted and placed on antibiotic IV's and they're now talking about surgery tomorrow AM to clean the actual joint "in case" there's any infection in the actual joint. My concern is that all of the research I've done says that it can take 2-3 days for the IV antibiotics to really work.
My question is: Is there any real risk to waiting an extra day to decide if we need to have surgery to reach the knuckle joint itself for cleaning?