Understanding sepsis, a life-threatening medical condition

You may have heard the term “sepsis,” but if you’re unfamiliar with its signs and symptoms, you could be at risk of serious illness or death. Let’s answer some common questions about it.

What is sepsis?

Sepsis is an abnormal response to an infection in the body. It creates a wide cascade of inflammation throughout the body’s organs. At times, the body will have an overactive response to that infection.

Normally, if you get an infection like a sore throat, things will get better quickly. But other times, if you get even sicker, it can worsen and start to involve other parts of the body. That's when you start thinking about sepsis.

How do people get sepsis?

People can get sepsis from all kinds of different causes. Some common causes include an infection of the skin, something called cellulitis. You can also develop pneumonia. Other people can have an abscess somewhere within the body. Inflammation in the large intestine, known as diverticulitis, and even urinary tract infections can cause sepsis in some people.

Who diagnoses sepsis?

Sepsis can be seen almost anywhere in the medical field. We see a lot of it in the emergency department, because the emergency departments serve as the primary portal of entry for people with many of these symptoms.

What are the signs and symptoms of sepsis?

There are many symptoms that could be signs of sepsis. Some of the more common ones include:

• Fever
• Difficulty breathing or an increased respiratory rate
• Altered mental state
• Elevated heart rate
• Decreased urine output
• Low blood pressure

From these symptoms alone, it can be hard to know if you’re dealing with sepsis. The important thing to watch for is evidence that an organ might be affected. A decrease in urine output, for example, might be a sign that your kidneys are infected. Your doctor will be watching for these symptoms, but always feel empowered as a patient to ask, “Could this be sepsis?”

Why is early diagnosis important?

The initial diagnosis is so key to helping to make sure that people have the best chance of surviving sepsis. The time between the infection setting in and the antibiotics starting is the best window for setting up a patient for successful outcomes.

How is sepsis treated?

If we think you might have sepsis, we’ll start you on early antibiotics that are broad-acting, meaning they'll cover just about everything. We’ll do some additional lab work, but oftentimes the antibiotics will help you recover.

If you’re showing signs of end organ damage — if your lungs or kidneys are not working well, for example — then we’ll give you fluid to help support blood flow to those organs.

Is sepsis curable?

Sepsis isn't necessarily a long-term problem that people have with things like diabetes or cancer, but it's something that's very treatable if recognized up front.

Are certain people more likely to develop sepsis?

People who are immunocompromised are more likely to get sepsis. If you're on some type of medication that suppresses your immune system, such as chemotherapy or if you've had an organ transplant, those things will increase your risk.

Elderly people and children are also more likely to develop sepsis, since they may not recognize symptoms or be able to advocate for themselves and seek care as easily.

How quickly might a patient with sepsis die?

There are some patients who get sick very quickly and can die within 12 hours. But those are cases where there is likely an infection in the bloodstream, and the symptoms are very obvious. For people exhibiting less-severe symptoms, there’s still a risk of death that can occur, but it’s over the coming days or during their hospitalization.

How do you recover from sepsis?

Recovery from sepsis is different for everybody. A lot of it depends on how healthy you were before the infection. If you were running marathons before you got sick, it’ll take some time to get back to that level of activity after sepsis treatment.

It also depends on how sick you got with the infection. Folks who end up in intensive care or on a ventilator will have a longer recovery period, and some of them may develop post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of having stayed in the ICU.