Sepsis

[Khun Paul]

Just read this, thought it would be advisable to read it as it is preventable and treatable . The findings of an International survey and its finding were published in the Lancet in the UK


Who is affected?
The overwhelming majority of cases (85%) are in low- and middle- income countries.
Children were most at risk with four in 10 cases in children under the age of five.
But even in the UK, sepsis is a challenge. The death rate is higher than in countries such as Spain, France and Canada.
There are around 48,000 deaths from sepsis in the UK each year, the report shows.
There has been a big push within the health service to identify the signs of sepsis more quickly and to begin treatment.
What can be done about it?
Reducing the number of infections can reduce the number of cases of sepsis.
For many countries, this means good sanitation, clean water and access to vaccines.
The other challenge is to get better at identifying patients with sepsis in order to treat them before it is too late.
Early treatment with antibiotics or anti-virals to clear an infection can make a massive difference.
Prof Mohsen Naghavi said: "We are alarmed to find sepsis deaths are much higher than previously estimated, especially as the condition is both preventable and treatable.
"We need renewed focus on sepsis prevention among newborns and on tackling antimicrobial resistance, an important driver of the condition."
What are the symptoms of sepsis?
In adults:
slurred speech
extreme shivering or muscle pain
passing no urine in a day
severe breathlessness
high heart rate and high or low body temperature
skin mottled or discoloured
In children:
a mottled, bluish or pale appearance
very lethargic or difficult to wake
abnormally cold to touch
breathing very fast
a rash that does not fade when you press it
a seizure or convulsion


Often parents are the first to notice , so forewarned is forearmed, I was personally unaware of the symptoms and I been around medical people most of my life .

[Hoopoe]

by Khun Paul » January 17, 2020, 5:49 am
especially as the condition is both preventable and treatable.

Hmm , treatable ?? only in some cases (possibly when diagnosed early ,) i'd never heard of this "Sepsis " 18 months ago i got the call ,my inlaw had sepsis it so called had been caught early enough , he was in hospital ,on all the best treatment and would be out in a week ,they jokingly blamed it on his new wife wearing him out , three weeks later he came out of hospital in a box ,the sad tragedy of this one is they'd only been married 8 weeks , UK

[papafarang]

My best friend in the UK died from sepsis, he kept refusing to go to hospital. Shortly after I did get him to go he doctors told me there was nothing they could do for him.two days after he went in his kidney function ceased, doctor informed me they expected his liver to stop functioning and finally his heart.gave up on the 5th day. Only 43 years old. Doctor also assured me that even if I had managed to get him to hospital a week earlier it would not have made any difference, his body was simply shutting down. Very sad memory

[Khun Paul]

See it can be treated in the very early stages, however ignoring the symptoms and trying to be clever obviously does not work very well. So often we ignore what our bodies are telling us, unlike a computer where we can reboot to a time when it works correctly we biological masterpieces are unable to do that . So to take what my brother said ( A senior consultant in the UK, know your body, never ignore it, live longer .

[Bandung_Dero]

About 12 yeas ago a friend (43 yo at the time), here in Ban Dung, checked himself into AEK not feeling well. Was quickly diagnosed with septicemia, against doctors recommendations he checked himself out after 4 days then 36 hours later was found dead in his home. Officially:- Heart failure due to sepsis.

Definitely a condition not to be ignored or treated lightly!

[tamada]

For me, the jury is out on whether this reported surge in sepsis deaths, especially being flagged in the UK, isn't obscuring something much more malign with the 'wonderful' NHS. My dad basically died on a gurney waiting for an ambulance in a freezing, windy hospital lobby in Peterhead. The post-surgical palliative care and physiotherapy that was claimed to be unavailable at the very busy general hospital in Aberdeen where he had the life-saving surgery a few weeks earlier, and promised at the smaller, local hospital was a sham and never materialized. The nurses were lazy and inattentive and the visiting Physio later claimed that my father 'missed his appointments.' This was a 76 year old, mostly bed-ridden but outwardly healthy man in a 4-ward 'cottage' hospital. He stoically joked when advised that he had 'missed' the Phsyio, that must have gone for a walk? After 10 days of steady physical decline, his condition was only noted as being perilous enough for emergency transfer back to Aberdeen intensive care at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night when local doctors are replaced by on-call telephone 'medical advisers' and ambulances are historically scarcer than hens teeth.

His death certificate indicated the primary cause if death as sepsis along with a couple of minor, less contributory post-surgery factors. One of them being bed sores already indicated a lack of nursing attention to a post-operative elderly patients basic needs. I failed to understand how sepsis could have lain undetected and untreated for the best part of 2 weeks in two hospitals, one of which is a flagship of university medical teaching in Scotland. We took it to the health ombudsman who, after 4 months, did acknowledge in a report that there were systemic and professional failures and claimed that they had resolved these, learned from them and moved on. We did our best and moved on but the "What if?" thoughts frequently resurfaced, especially on certain birthdays and anniversaries.

Maybe they had solved the problem at that juncture but maybe things were allowed to slide again? To me, sepsis appears to be the throw down, hard to define, catch-all killer and I consider claiming it as a primary cause of a premature death is the tip of an iceberg. Sepsis is real but I think the real cause is being ignored (again).

[DRILLER]

ive noticed the declining standard in european doctors when compared to doctors from india or australia

i dont know why that is but it certainly does appear to me that way