Match Against Query with Integers

["Harry G" <harry@xxxxxxxxx (removethis)>]

Hi

Here's the senario...

Table 1- members
id - firstname - middlename - ....- country - region3

Fields country and region3 hold the integer codes for country and region3 is state

Table 2- country
id - countryname
Countryname is where the actual Country name is stored and id is the country code

Similarly Table 3 - region3
id - region3 where region3 is the state name and id is the region code.

I want to query country code and state code in the database but the fields are integer values. I am trying to modify the following query, but I think it will not work for integers? Is that correct?? 

$keywords are the contry & state codes (integers).

$query = " 
       SELECT id, firstname, familyname, middlename, fathername, region3, region4, country,
          MATCH(country, region3, region4) AGAINST ('$keywords' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS score  
          FROM members 
       WHERE MATCH(country, region3, region4) AGAINST ('$keywords' IN BOOLEAN MODE) ORDER BY score DESC"; 

Thanks
Harry