What is Sepsis and why is it so hard to treat?

Answer 1

Donavon,

I'm not sure at what level you are studying (EMT, Paramedic, Nursing, Medical School, etc...) so I'll answer your question briefly....

Sepsis is a systemic (body wide) infection. Imagine a urinary tract infection and due to lack of treatment that infection spreads throughout your blood stream, essentially infecting your entire body.

Sepsis can be difficult to treat because a lot of times, the patient has already waited "too long" to seek treatment or his/her symptoms went unnoticed by medical staff. Also, the patient's comorbidities may decrease healing time with antibiotics, etc...

Answer 2

Sepsis is a severe infection of the bloodstream. It usually occurs after someone has had an infection somewhere else in the body such as the kidneys, lungs, and skin. It can also can develop after someone has surgery. It is usually caused by bacteria, but can be caused by other organisms such as viruses and fungi. It is important to diagnose it early; as it can lead to shock-if not treated. A person's blood pressure becomes very low-and this decreases blood flow to vital organs-and they therefore begin to shutdown. It is often hard to diagnose; as it can mimic other diseases; especially in the early stages. Therefore, a lot of people are not diagnosed and treated until the person is already in the later stages-and the body begins to shut down.

Answer 3

Simply put, sepsis is an infection of the blood. Oftentimes the infection doesn't begin as "septic" however, if left untreated the infection "CAN" make its way into the blood stream and the virus/bacteria can multiply to such an extent that high levels are detected in the blood. When a patient goes septic it's extremely dangerous because the infection, which was at first localized to a particular tissue, now has the ability to spread to any place that the blood travels, i.e., the whole body.