Sepsis, or “blood poisoning,” is both fatal and difficult to diagnose. Learning how to recognize the symptoms is the best way to protect yourself from this silent killer.
Symptoms of Septicemia
1. fever
The septicemia would strike over a million North Americans and kill nearly half of its victims, according to US health authorities. Despite this, nearly half of the population has never heard of septicemia, a fatal disease that occurs when a bacterial infection that is first confined to a specific part of our body spread through the body’s Blood network. People with weak immune systems are more contract to septicemia, also anyone can contract septicemia from pneumonia, urinary tract infection, or even a simple cut in the arm or leg. Although septicemia is easily treatable with antibiotics if taken early, it is often diagnosed only too late. This is why it is essential to know the symptoms, the most important is high fever.
Sepsis occurs when “toxins from an infected organ spread through the bloodstream and create inflammation,” Fever is a result of an infection caused by systemic inflammation. “Our ten natural remedies for fever.
2. Temperature Drop
The toxins of septicemia also have an adverse effect. “It also happens that the body has a response to the infection by lowering its temperature, but this is exceptional,” we confirm that low temperatures can also hide severe cases of septicemia and a much darker prognosis. It is estimating that there is a need to start worrying if the temperature drops below 36º C (96.8º F).
3. Chills
Strangely, fever is often accompanied by chills – do not fail to report this symptom to your doctor. “The chills are very subjective, but a health professional can not observe them,” says Dr. Dellinger. It remains easy to confuse fever and chills with a bunch of other infections, such as influenza, so sepsis can only be identified when these symptoms observed in conjunction with others. “The more length and intensity the signs are, the more worry you are about septicemia”.
4. Pain and Discomfort
Pain due to septicemia disease can either be irradiated throughout the body or be localized in different places. For 11-year-old child Staunton, the most symptoms of septicemia were stomach and leg pain. “We went to the emergency room of New York Hospital where doctors explained Rory’s pain by stomach pain and dehydration“.
Unfortunately, Rory’s septicemia, as a result of a cut on the arm he had made at the gym, was not taken in time. “The next morning, he continued to complain about pain,” she continues. We then took him back to the hospital where, this time, he admitted to intensive care. He was very sick. “the child died two days later.
5. Drop in Blood Pressure
Hypotension is one of the “most likely signs” of infection, notes Dr. Dellinger, and it may indicate septic shock, the most severe stage of septicemia. Blood pressure drops when the blood vessels begin to lose fluids and the veins and artery relax so that the blood can no longer circulate in the body as it should. “In its most severe form, blood pressure drops to the point of not being able to renew the fluids, and the patient injected with medications to relieve the pressure,” says Dr. Dellinger. New guidelines for septicemia recommend that doctors watch out for systolic blood pressure (the maximum value) fall below 100.
6. Rapid Pulse
In the case of septicemia, your heart tries to do its job by circulating the blood more effectively to fight the infection. “It’s a common reaction: when it’s sick, the body increases the amount of blood the heart pumps.” The body has two ways of achieving this: either it increases heart pulsations, or it pumps the heart more. This influx of extra blood helps the body fight against the infection. “A pulse of 90 or more may indicate septicemia.
7. Shortness of Breath
The new guidelines on septicemia also recommend monitoring any breathing of more than 22 inspirations per minute. Sepsis can accelerate breathing for two reasons: “One is respiratory tract infection, which results in oxygen depletion”. Pneumonia, one of the most frequent causes of sepsis, ranks among these infections. But “even if the infection is not in the lungs, the body needs more oxygen as the infection progresses and the need to release more carbon dioxide is felt. The body reacts by accelerating the breathing, which explains why you feel out of breath. Also, pay attention to these warning signs of a heart attack.
8. Pale, mottled, or moist skin
As your body reallocates its energy and resources into the brain and heart, it may neglect other organs that it considers less critical, such as the skin. “When a patient contracts septicemia, the body redirects blood flow to the vital organs to the detriment of those parts of the body that are less vital to survival,”. Less irrigated, the skin can take a pale tint.” Staunton notes that her son, Rory, had strangely moist skin, a symptom that the doctors neglected until it was too late. “They were not looking for septicemia, and that’s why they were totally missing,” she said. If the child doctors had wondered if the septicemia could explain his symptoms, they would have immediately diagnosed it. “Pallor could also be a sign of anemia.
