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Mark Sollis went to the hospital sick with what he thought was the flu, about three months ago.
His GP told him the same, and sent him home after assessing his symptoms of coughing, aching muscles, and lethargy.
But unlike most flu sufferers, his flu didn’t get better with time. He became weaker, and breathing became harder. A week later, his wife took him to the emergency room.
Doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia. But on closer investigation, it was found to be much worse than they anticipated.
He did have pneumonia, caused by legionella. That, in turn, had triggered sepsis. Luckily, sepsis is common at the hospital Mark was in, so they were able to begin treatment.
Sepsis is difficult to diagnose. Symptoms can be anything form fever, to extreme muscle pain, to breathlessness, to slurred speech. Some patients even report feeling like they’re going to die.
The hospital Mark was in had a better diagnosis test than most. They tested for raised pulse and falling blood pressure, and they already suspected a bacterial infection.
“There needs to be a cultural shift so people think of [these symptoms] as sepsis and react accordingly,” says Dr. Srivastava, a consultant in acute medicine at King’s College Hospital in London, where Mark was treated.
Sepsis is responsible for more deaths than breast, bowel, and prostate cancer combined every year, but it’s treatable if caught early.
It’s basically a massive overreaction by your body to an infection—the body releases cytokines, which widen blood vessels and reduce blood pressure dramatically. It also causes blood clots, which block blood flow to vital organs, starving them of oxygen. It can be caused by pneumonia or the flu, or something as small as a cut on your finger.
Mark was treated with the sepsis six—the gold standard of sepsis treatment. He was given blood test, oxygen and antibiotics, intravenous fluid to improve blood pressure, and his urine production was measured.
He made a full recovery, after three months of treatment. But now, the doctors who treated him want his story to be a lesson to other hospitals. Hospitals are guilty of underdiagnosing sepsis, and that can lead to unnecessary sepsis deaths.
“If I had gone somewhere else, there’s a good chance I would not be having this conversation,” says Mark.
