Blood Infection - Symptoms

Many doctors view sepsis as a three-stage syndrome, starting with sepsis and progressing through severe sepsis to septic shock. The goal is to treat sepsis during its early stage, before it becomes more dangerous.

Symptoms

To be diagnosed with sepsis, you must exhibit at least two of the following symptoms, plus a probable or confirmed infection:

• Body temperature above 101 F (38.3 C) or below 96.8 F (36 C)
• Heart rate higher than 90 beats a minute
• Respiratory rate higher than 20 breaths a minute

Severe sepsis

Your diagnosis will be upgraded to severe sepsis if you also exhibit at least one of the following signs and symptoms, which indicate an organ may be failing:

• Significantly decreased urine output
• Abrupt change in mental status
• Decrease in platelet count
• Difficulty breathing
• Abnormal heart pumping function
• Abdominal pain

Septic shock

To be diagnosed with septic shock, you must have the signs and symptoms of severe sepsis — plus extremely low blood pressure that doesn’t adequately respond to simple fluid replacement.