Sepsis refresher course
In December of 2015 I wrote a post about sepsis, “The killer you probably know almost nothing about.” I consider it a public service to inform people as best I can about sepsis, which caused the death of a very dear friend/relative of mine.
I noticed this recent article on the subject, which is a good and pretty comprehensive summary of the subject, so I thought I’d link to it. It even has a similar title: “Sepsis, the deadly threat you don’t know.”
Knowing more about sepsis could save lives.
Truly a scary condition.
I saw this recently about a potential treatment:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/23/521096488/doctor-turns-up-possible-treatment-for-deadly-sepsis
Cat Scratch Fever is not just a song…
Before you have surgery have your Vitamin D level checked, the best surgical outcomes tend to happen for people that have high levels of Vitamin D on board. After D is utilized by the body as a Vitamin what remains is used by the body as a natural steroid & steroids are anti inflammatories that help support the immune system and will make antibiotics work better.
Molly NH: Good stuff! I don’t take alotta vitamins — just a Centrum and a D.
Probably missed this the first time. Thanks, Neo.
When I was in 6th grade, my mother had a d-n-c surgical procedure. She went to bed not feeling well, but by the early morning hours she was moaning and crying.
Mom was divorced and I was the oldest, so I kept telling her we had to do something and she kept saying she didn’t want to bother anyone.
At 7 AM I called my grandmother and explained. She said, “What?! Call the doctor.”
I called the doctor and he answered blearily, “Didn’t she take the pills?” He meant antibiotics.
I left to consult my mother. Then I told the doctor, “There aren’t any pills.”
The doctor woke right up. “I’m calling it in. Go to the Elinor Village pharmacy as soon as it’s open and pick up the prescription.”
So I pedaled my olive-green Schwinn the half-mile or so to Elinor Village. As soon as the doors opened, I was at the pharmacy counter picking up the Rx. Then I rode hard to get the pills to my mother.
She took them. They were huge pills stuffed with antibiotics. She got better and I felt like a hero.
Sort of. Because I was also horrified that somehow it had come down to me to save my mother’s life and I was only 12 years old.
There’s not much in Erin’s story to educate the public about. Sepsis, the former Septicemia (bacteria in the vascular system) is associated with a high fever, rapid pulse, low blood pressure and little else.
We do not know the details of Erin’s ER visits and the findings. But it seems that medical lethargy was operative. The inaction is disgraceful.
If she came to a decent ER with temp > 104F, blood cultures will be drawn with or without another possible locus of infection (e.g. lung), because something bad is afoot. IVs will be started for blood volume expansion and drug administration, and the patient will be urgently admitted or, at worst, held for observation. Broad-spectrum antibiotics will be given IV.
That is the standard of care.
Dentist Dad likely feels some guilt in his daughter’s death…too passive? on the sidelines? not pushy
enough?
There is another odd part to this story: 23 year-old women do not get awful hemorrhoids requiring surgery.
The NPR story provided by London Trader is, regrettably, full of hokum.
MollyNH:
anti-inflammatories (corticosteroids, in the main) do not “support” the immune sytem. They in fact interfere with, and suppress certain components thereof.
The claim that X “supports” a bodily system or organ is a legally-chosen safe word. Like “A substance originally found in jellyfish supports brain health.” Claims like that need no FDA approval, no determination of efficacy needed.
Linkage of high Vit. D levels to better surgical outcomes is very dubious. Got a link?
It is all BS, and parts fools from their money.
Sorry.
Frog: I thought it might be but as a non medical person it’s hard to tell. The report does reference a somewhat limited clinical study though.
I’m older now and I realize that most likely my mother’s d-n-c was an abortion.
There’s no way I could have known that at 12 years-old. I was just trying to save my one and only mother from dying.
Eff Frog and most conservatives who don’t understand this story.
Sorry froggy but you don’t think know what you talking about, do some Google research on your own I am not your info finder in the mean time my suggestion is get that D on board, good luck hope you never run into medical misadventure,like some of these unfortunates.
So what huxley, you had to deal with what you saw not make judgements, then or now even.
Frog:
It is indeed unusual for a young person to have a hemorrhoid operation. But hardly unheard of. It happens now and then.
See this, for example.
MollyNH, you know a lot about a lot of stuff, but you do not know nearly enough medicine. Using Google will not suffice, regrettably.
Try educating yourself about the immune system, acute versus chronic inflammatory responses, then go to the cellular constituents. It is extraordinarily complex, intimidatingly so, and gets more complex every year.
For example, there is “granuloma”; then there are the constituent cells of the granuloma- what do they all do? The macrophages, the T and B cells and their many subgroups, the fibroblasts?
Don’t forget antibodies- what makes them? And how? How many immunocytic disorders are there, and how are they treated?
You will not succeed, because you cannot understand the biology involved. There are no shortcuts to ten years of education.
Check out also the panoply of auto-immune diseases, in which my wife is a specialist. That alone will leave your head spinning, and does not include lymphomas and leukemias.
The immune system is extraordinarily complex. A vague notion of “supporting” it with vitamin D is regrettably sheer nonsense.
huxley: none of what I wrote, and now write, is in any way related to your story about your mother’s D and C (=Dilatation and Curettage). Sorry.
It is extraordinarily complex, intimidatingly so, and gets more complex every year.
Another way of saying idiotic scientists are recognizing just how much doctors and science had got it wrong.
And the reason why it gets complex is partly because of unnecessary biowarfare R and D in hospitals.
It is pretty obvious, btw, that vitamins support the immune system. Why? Because of the Black Death. Highest casualties rates were among the malnourished, the young, and the very old. Immune system wise, many people could have fought it off, if they had enough reserves of energy to begin with, which many didn’t at the time.
As for which vitamins do what, that’s not really necessary to figure out.