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Septic Shock Treatment

Sepsis occurs when your body's immune system overreacts to an infection, damaging healthy tissues as well. Once sepsis progresses, you may experience damage to your organs and septic shock, a sudden, sometimes fatal, drop in your blood pressure. Septic shock most often affects people with compromised immune systems, the young and the old, people who are hospitalized and those with invasive devices such as a catheter.

  1. Symptoms

    • Your sepsis will need to be quite severe to reach septic shock. Usually, your organs will be damaged and first you will experience symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, heart abnormalities and basically stoppage in the flow of urine. People with advanced sepsis also will experience sudden cognitive difficulties, a low platelet count in their blood and, usually, a mottled appearance in their skin. To be diagnosed with septic shock, you must have one or more of these symptoms plus low blood pressure. Most often, a person already will be hospitalized before going into septic shock.

    Treatment

    • It is important to treat sepsis early and aggressively. If you are already in septic shock, you need to be monitored closely in a hospital. Most often, you will be hooked up to machines that monitor and control your heartbeat, kidneys and breathing functions. Your doctor probably will use one or more medications to fight sepsis. If you are diagnosed with sepsis, your doctor will put you on antibiotics immediately. He will not take the time to diagnose the specific bacteria affecting you but instead put you on a top antibiotic that is effective against most bacteria, usually via an intravenous drip. Once your doctor discovers the underlying cause of the sepsis, he may switch you to a different antibiotic.

    Other Treatment

    • To combat the low blood pressure associated with septic shock, your doctor may use a vasopresser. This type of medicine works by constricting blood vessels to the point that elevates your blood pressure. Other drugs that may be administered include painkillers, corticosteroids and other medicines that help change your immune system's response. If your doctor locates the source of your infection, surgery may be required to remove it-- including intravenous lines, catheters and breathing tubes as well as infected tissue. Any infected abscesses will be drained of pus.

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