Septicemia is a serious bloodstream infection. It’s also known as blood poisoning.
Septicemia occurs when a bacterial infection elsewhere in the body, such as the lungs or skin, enters the bloodstream. This is dangerous because the bacteria and their toxins can be carried through the bloodstream to your entire body.
Septicemia can quickly become life-threatening. It must be treated in a hospital. If left untreated, septicemia can progress to sepsis.
Septicemia is caused by an infection in another part of the body. This infection is typically severe. Many types of bacteria can lead to septicemia. The exact source of the infection often can’t be determined. The most common infections that lead to septicemia are:
Bacteria from these infections enter the bloodstream and multiply rapidly, causing immediate symptoms.
People already in the hospital for something else, such as a surgery, are at a higher risk of developing septicemia. Secondary infections can occur while in the hospital. These infections are often more dangerous because the bacteria may already be resistant to antibiotics.
The symptoms of septicemia usually start very quickly. Even in the first stages, a person can look very sick. They may follow an injury, surgery, or another localized infection, such as pneumonia. The most common initial symptoms are:
More severe symptoms will begin to emerge as septicemia progresses without proper treatment. These include the following:
Septicemia has a number of serious complications. These complications may be fatal if left untreated or if treatment is delayed for too long.
Sepsis : Sepsis occurs when your body has a strong immune response to the infection. This leads to widespread inflammation throughout the body. It’s called severe sepsis if it leads to organ failure.
People with chronic diseases are at a higher risk of sepsis. This is because they have a weakened immune system and can’t fight off the infection on their own.
Septic shock : One complication of septicemia is a serious drop in blood pressure. This is called septic shock. Toxins released by the bacteria in the bloodstream can cause extremely low blood flow, which may result in organ or tissue damage.
Septic shock is a medical emergency. People with septic shock are usually cared for in a hospital’s intensive care unit. You may need to be put on a ventilator, or breathing machine, if you’re in septic shock.
A third complication of septicemia is acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This is a life-threatening condition that prevents enough oxygen from reaching your lungs and blood. It often results in some level of permanent lung damage. It can also damage your brain, leading to memory problems.
Belladonna is one of the first remedies that comes to ones mind when inflammation is encountered – inflammation with its redness, swelling, pain, throbbing and burning-when suppuration, maybe, is commencing. The affection comes on suddenly and with great violence. There are painful, hot, shining, erysipelatous swellings, intensely inflamed about their bases.
Hepar sulphuris is likely the most often thought of remedy in connection with suppuration. It comes not use after pus formation is inevitable, and especially, when heat furnishes the only comfort. It suits best the lymphatic or phlegmatic type, the dull, sluggish, apathetic patient. The parts affected are exceedingly sensitive, which is the leading indication.
Calcarea sulphurica. Similar to Hepar, is though of in suppurative processes after pus has forced a vent, but continues indefinitely as in fistulous abscesses about the anus, gum, boils, etc., Hepar and Calcarea sulphurica, given in low potencies, favour suppuration; given in high potencies, might abort. You may expect to the use of this remedy for suppuration in any part of the body-about the eyes, ears, throat, nose, glands. In quinsy, retropharyngeal abscess, any suppurative condition of the throat, it is often indicated. The sensation of a fish bone in the throat is a good characteristic.
Silicea is the remedy generally required in scrofulous and tuberculous patients. As it is a slow-acting remedy, it is suited to complaints that develop slowly. It is full of suppurative abscesses, and it will ripen them, if the symptoms agree. Every little injury suppurates. It has felons, boils, old, long-lasting fistulous ulcers. Especially is it famous for its old, sluggish, indolent, fistulous burrowings.e.t.c