My uncle was diagnosed with chronic osteomyelitis 10 years ago at the Cancer Care Alliance Center in Seattle WA. At the time that he walked into the hospital there, all of his blood work was in the normal means. They biopsied the tumor in his leg, drained, debrided it and diagnosed it as osteomyelitis. He was placed on a PICC line and sent back to Alaska. This past October he suffered from a boil on the back of his neck which was treated with a Z-pac. In December he drilled his hand and then less than 5 hours later is was so infected that the ER put him on IV antibiotics. Last month, he woke up one morning with throbbing and severe pain in his knee, all the way down his leg. He says that it is the same discomfort that he felt for years when he had the problem in his other leg. We have had blood work done, all normal again, MRI, dopplar and ultrasound done to rule out other things. Now he has a large "boil" on his back that has gotten increasingly sorer the last few days. Is it possible that he has osteomyelitis again and it isn't showing up again like it did before?