Can you survive septicemia

The symptoms of septicemia usually start very quickly. Even in the first stages, a person can look very sick. They may follow an injury, surgery, or another localized infection, such as pneumonia. The most common initial symptoms are:. More severe symptoms will begin to emerge as septicemia progresses without proper treatment. These include the following:.

Septicemia has a number of serious complications. These complications may be fatal if left untreated or if treatment is delayed for too long. Sepsis occurs when your body has a strong immune response to the infection.

This leads to widespread inflammation throughout the body. People with chronic diseases are at a higher risk of sepsis. One complication of septicemia is a serious drop in blood pressure.

This is called septic shock. Toxins released by the bacteria in the bloodstream can cause extremely low blood flow, which may result in organ or tissue damage.

Septic shock is a medical emergency. A third complication of septicemia is acute respiratory distress syndrome ARDS. This is a life-threatening condition that prevents enough oxygen from reaching your lungs and blood. It often results in some level of permanent lung damage.

It can also damage your brain, leading to memory problems. Diagnosing septicemia and sepsis are some of the biggest challenges facing doctors.

It can be difficult to find the exact cause of the infection. Diagnosis will usually involve a wide range of tests. Your doctor will evaluate your symptoms and ask your medical history. The doctor may also look for signs of conditions that more commonly occur along with septicemia, including:.

Your doctor may want to perform tests on multiple types of fluids to help confirm a bacterial infection. These may include the following:. As with other illnesses requiring intensive medical care, some patients have long-term effects. These problems might not become apparent for several weeks after treatment is completed and might include such consequences as:. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link.

Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. I survived sepsis. Minus Related Pages. On this Page. How will I feel when I get home? Many conditions can mimic sepsis, including severe allergic reactions, bleeding, heart attacks, blood clots and medication overdoses.

Sepsis requires particular prompt treatments, so getting the diagnosis right matters. As recently as a decade ago, doctors believed that sepsis patients were out of the woods if they could just survive to hospital discharge. Sepsis survivors also have an increased risk of dying for months to years after the acute infection is cured.

Common symptoms include weakness, forgetfulness, anxiety and depression. Post-Intensive Care Syndrome and frequent hospital readmissions mean that we have dramatically underestimated how much sepsis care costs. Unfortunately, progress in improving sepsis care has lagged behind improvements in cancer and heart care, as attention has shifted to the treatment of chronic diseases. However, sepsis remains a common cause of death in patients with chronic diseases. One way to help reduce the death toll of these chronic diseases may be to improve our treatment of sepsis.

Raising public awareness increases the likelihood that patients will get to the hospital quickly when they are developing sepsis. This in turn allows prompt treatment, which lowers the risk of long-term problems.

Beyond increasing public awareness, doctors and policymakers are also working to improve the care of sepsis patients in the hospital. For instance, a new sepsis definition was released by several physician groups in February As part of the sepsis redefinition process, the physician groups also developed a new prediction tool called qSOFA.

This instrument identifies patients with infection who are at high risk of death or prolonged intensive care. The tools uses just three factors: thinking much less clearly than usual, quick breathing and low blood pressure. Anyone with an infection who develops the following sepsis symptoms needs urgent medical attention:. As sepsis progresses, septic shock can occur. Learn more about septic shock here. Older adults and younger children have a particularly high risk of sepsis, and they are also more likely to experience a rapid worsening of sepsis symptoms.

But the issue can be harder to spot in these age groups. Causes of sepsis include:. Sepsis can affect anyone with an infection, but the risk is higher for:.

Vulnerability to sepsis appears to be growing. One reason for this may be antibiotic resistance — a term that refers to microbes becoming immune to drugs that once controlled many infections. A doctor will provide rapid treatment for sepsis, including:. Older people , in particular, may also need treatment to:. Some severe cases of sepsis or septic shock do not respond to all disease-directed therapies. In these instances, healthcare professionals may need to provide end-of-life care.

Sepsis can develop within 24 hours of birth, and in newborns, the issue is called neonatal sepsis. A baby is considered a neonate up to 90 days after delivery.

Late-onset neonatal sepsis starts 24 hours or more after delivery. It can stem from a bacterial, viral, or fungal infection.