Symptoms:

• Chills
• Fever
• Loss of bladder or bowel control
• Loss of movement of an area of the body
• Loss of sensation of an area of the body
• Low backache, often mild but slowly gets worse
  • Pain typically moves to the hip, leg, or feet
  • Pain may spread to the shoulder, arm, or hand
• Male impotence
• Nervous system (neurologic) symptoms that suddenly get worse
• Numbness in a specific, limited area (localized)
• Severe back pain
• Weakness or paralysis

Signs and tests:

A physical exam often shows tenderness over the spine. An exam may show signs of:

• Spinal cord compression
• Paralysis of the lower body (paraplegia) or of the entire trunk, arms, and legs (quadriplegia)

The amount of nerve loss depends on where the lesion is located on the spine and how much it is compressing the spinal cord.

Tests that may be done:

• CT scan
• Draining of abscess and culture of abscess material
• Examination of cerebrospinal fluid
• MRI