What is Sepsis?

What is Sepsis?
Sepsis is the body’s overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. In other words, it’s your body’s overactive and toxic response to an infection.
Your immune system usually works to fight any germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites) to prevent infection. If an infection does occur, your immune system will try to fight it, although you may need help with medication such as antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics. However, for reasons researchers don’t understand, sometimes the immune system stops fighting the “invaders,” and begins to turn on itself. This is the start of sepsis.
Patients are diagnosed with sepsis when they develop a set of signs and symptoms related to sepsis. Sepsis is not diagnosed based on an infection itself. If you have more than one of the symptoms of sepsis, especially if there are signs of an infection or you fall into one of the higher risk groups, your doctor will likely suspect sepsis.

What are the symptoms?

Post Sepsis Syndrome
Post-sepsis syndrome (PSS) is a condition that affects up to 50% of sepsis survivors. It includes physical and/or psychological long-term effects, such as:
Difficulty sleeping, either difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep 
Nightmares 
Hallucinations 
Panic attacks 
Disabling muscle or joint pain 
Difficulty concentrating 
Decreased cognitive (mental) functioning 
Loss of self-esteem 
Depression
The risk of having PSS is higher among people admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) and for those who have been in the hospital for extended periods of time.
All of the above information was taken from https://www.sepsis.org/ 

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