Sepsis

I have noticed a lot of cases are being reported of people contracting Sepsis, which of course is extremely dangerous and life threatening. It is only in the past couple of years that i have heard of Sepsis yet now is so common. I wonder why?

Did it used to be called something else?

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I dread getting it anytime.

It does seem to be more prevalent but I believe that previous cases of sepsis were labelled as something else.

It seems to be more common with patients in intensive care.

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It's a major infection isn't it ?

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yeah, it just seems to be becoming more and more common and I can't understand why. I honestly hadn't heard of the word only over the past year or so.

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Hi LC Sepsis used to be called 'Septicemia' or 'Blood Poisoning' and I always had it drummed into me to wash any cuts to prevent 'blood poisoning' .

My neighbour nearly died from it having stuck a gardening fork in his toe .

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Septicemia can also be caused when bacterial meningitis enters the blood stream, it's called meningococcal septicaemia.

I worked for some years in a girls boarding school and one of our girls from overseas contracted meningitis and developed meningococcal septicaemia. She lost both feet

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Oh, thank you for explaining, I have heard of septicemia, my grandma died of it, she had been in the garden pruning roses and she got scratched on her leg, she ended up with septicemia, which I guess would have been called sepsis today.

I wonder why they changed the name.

Ouch at your neighbour forking his toe!!

Thanks again Meg x

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That's frightening.

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My friend died of it last year, it was extremely sudden, she had a sore on her back, being diabetic I suppose she was used to not healing quickly, went down hill very fast
It's a really horrible thing.

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One of my grand daughters had meningococcal septicaemia at the age of 10 months.
It's horrible ! . She was completely out of it for days and her little face was puffed up like a balloon.

Fortunately , due to her mothers spontaneous reactions she was in hospital and strung up on all sorts of drips within half an hour of calling the paramedics.

She came through it, but had she been in any other hospital in the area other than Alder Hey, she most likely wouldn't have done. Her little finger went black but regenerated itself. However, 8 yrs down the line, the after effects have come to light. Where the bone from her wrist has split, her lower arm bone (radius) is now growing outwards from the wrist, so her arm is shorter and hand smaller. She has to face a major op. in September with a cage and a clamp to twist every day for months and months, to stretch the bone.
I can't imagine how painful it will be but she will be on morphine to start with. The whole process will have to be repeated again when she is about twelve .

There were other little children who didn't make it, and it's so terribly distressing .