Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Sepsis and septicemia are medical terms that refer to infections and your body's response to those infections. Sepsis and septicemia sometimes are used interchangeably, but they're not truly interchangeable—although the terms are closely related, their definitions are different.
Learn the correct use of each word when you're talking about infections. Sepsis is defined as an extreme inflammatory response to infection. When your body is threatened with a severe infection your immune system responds by releasing chemical messengers to sound the alarm. These chemical messengers produce inflammation throughout your body. The infection can be due to bacteria in the bloodstream, but sepsis can also be produced by an infection that is present only in one part of the body, such as the lungs in pneumonia.
The inflammation in sepsis can produce blood clots and leaking blood vessels. Without proper treatment, this can damage your organs and potentially kill you. Sepsis can progress to septic shock with your blood pressure dropping and your bodily systems starting to shut down. Your lungs, liver, and kidneys can fail. Therefore, sepsis is a medical emergency. In fact, sepsis kills almost , Americans each year, and survivors can have life-long effects from the disease.
The U. If you're experiencing symptoms of sepsis , you should seek immediate medical help. Symptoms include:. In some people, the first signs of sepsis are:. Adults 65 or older. People with weakened immune systems.
People with recent severe illness or hospitalization. Sepsis survivors. Children younger than one. High heart rate or low blood pressure. Confusion or disorientation. Extreme pain or discomfort. Fever, shivering, or feeling very cold. Shortness of breath.
Clammy or sweaty skin. A medical assessment by a healthcare professional is needed to confirm sepsis. The second most common sepsis misconception is that sepsis starts most often in the hospital.
Unfortunately, infections can be very serious because they can trigger sepsis, which kills more people in the United States than breast cancer, prostate cancer, and AIDS — combined.
An infection occurs when an organism, in this case your body, is invaded by a disease-causing agent. The agent could be bacteria , a virus , a parasite , or a fungus. We are exposed to infection-causing agents through our everyday activities. For example, you can touch a doorknob that has a cold virus that someone left behind, someone with the flu may sneeze near you, you can cut your finger on an object that has MRSA bacteria on it, or you can eat contaminated food.
If the infection does take hold, your immune system tries to fight it. Once your body detects an infection, your immune system begins to produce extra white blood cells and chemicals to fight the damaging agents. Antibiotics help fight bacterial infections, antivirals may work on some viruses, antifungals on fungal infections, and antiparasitics on parasitic infections.
The most common infections that cause sepsis are respiratory like pneumonia or urinary tract infections. But sepsis can also develop with influenza the flu , an infected cut or scrape, or strep throat, to name a few.
And sometimes, doctors never discover what the initial infection was. Septicaemia is when bacteria enter the bloodstream, and cause blood poisoning which triggers sepsis. Sepsis is an overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death. Meningitis is when infection reaches the lining around the brain and spinal cord the meninges which can cause dangerous swelling.
Still confused? And our support services can be found here. What are meningitis and septicaemia? Meningitis and septicaemia are serious, life threatening illnesses. Read more.
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