Can Severe Diarrhea Be Caused By Sepsis?

Post-sepsis syndrome affects various bodily systems, including cardiovascular, neurological, psychological, immune, metabolic, neuromuscular, renal, and pulmonary. Sepsis is a progression of an infection that can quickly turn into septic shock or even lead to death. Recognizing the signs of sepsis early and getting treatment immediately is essential to improve outcomes. Sepsis may cause atypical blood clotting, which can damage or destroy tissues. Most people recover from mild sepsis, but severe sepsis can affect many different areas of the body, leading to symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, severe pain and extreme discomfort, shortness of breath, and loss of consciousness.

Septic shock is a severe complication of sepsis that causes dangerously low blood pressure, causing internal organs like the lungs, kidneys, heart, and brain to receive too little blood. Severe sepsis or septic shock can cause a significant drop in blood and cause a change in mental state, such as confusion or disorientation, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and slurred speech. Severe sepsis is common in diarrheal adults and has a high rate of progression from severe sepsis to septic shock.

Sepsis is a whole-body response to an infection in the blood, also known as blood poisoning or septicemia. In some cases, a 44-year-old woman developed septic shock and severe watery diarrhea four days after undergoing a vagotomy. Antibiotics, probiotics, and supportive treatment are used to treat sepsis, which causes the immune system to attack tissues and leads to inflammation and potential organ damage. Side effects of sepsis include an upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, tiredness, feeling anxious, and a mild headache.

What organs fail first in sepsis?

• Sepsis can overwhelm the body. This can cause vital organs to shut down. This usually starts with the kidneys.
• Blood pressure can drop dangerously low. This can cause less oxygen and nutrients to reach your kidneys.
• Blood clots can form within the body. This can also slow down the flow of oxygen to the kidney.

Between one third and one half of acute kidney injury cases are believed to be caused by sepsis.

A person with sepsis may have any of the following symptoms:

What is silent sepsis?

In Tennessee, 80, 000 adults and 900 children were hospitalized for sepsis in 2022. Sepsis is the body’s abnormal response to an infection. Common symptoms include fever, chilling, fast heart rate, fast breathing, foggy thinking, weakness, hurting and generally feeling very sick. The symptoms are mild at first but worsen quickly and can lead to permanent disability or death.

Early recognition and treatment are vital for survival, so if you think you or a loved one has signs of sepsis, seek medical attention right away and say, “I am concerned about sepsis.”

Any infection can cause sepsis, and the source of infection can be viral, bacterial, fungal or caused by a parasite. It can be something that started as a simple paper cut or bug bite, or a larger infection, such as pneumonia or meningitis. Sometimes the cause is unknown. It can affect people of all ages and all levels of health, but those who are more likely to be severely affected are young children, older adults and people with chronic illnesses.

How do you know if your body is fighting sepsis?

Symptoms. In sepsis, blood pressure drops, resulting in shock. Major organs and body systems, including the kidneys, liver, lungs, and central nervous system may stop working properly because of poor blood flow.

A change in mental status and very fast breathing may be the earliest signs of sepsis.

• Chills
• Confusion or delirium
• Fever or low body temperature (hypothermia)
• Lightheadedness due to low blood pressure
• Rapid heartbeat
• Skin rash or mottled skin
• Warm skin

Exams and Tests. The health care provider will examine the person and ask about the person’s medical history.

What does sepsis do to the stomach?

Peritonitis is an inflammation of the serosal membrane in the abdominal cavity and its associated organs, which reacts to pathologic stimuli with a uniform inflammatory response. The resulting peritonitis can be infectious or sterile depending on the underlying pathology. The abdomen is the second most common source of sepsis and secondary peritonitis. Intra-abdominal sepsis is caused by pathogenic microorganisms and their products and can be localized or diffuse. Peritonitis is most often caused by organ perforation, but can also result from foreign bodies, bile from perforated gall bladders or livers, or gastric acid from ulcers. Women may experience localized peritonitis from infected fallopian tubes or ruptured ovarian cysts. Peritoneal infections can be classified as primary, secondary, or tertiary. Primary peritonitis is often spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) seen in patients with chronic liver disease. Secondary peritonitis is the most common form of peritonitis, while tertiary peritonitis often develops in the absence of the original visceral organ pathology.

What are signs of progressing sepsis?

The most common signs include the following:Source of infection (cough, sore throat, abdominal pain, pain with urination) and fevers. High heart rate. Shortness of breath. Confusion or disorientation. Lightheadedness and/or low blood pressure. Decreased urine output.

An infection can start with a simple injury—like a shallow cut on the arm—that allows bacteria and other microbes to slip into your body’s tissue or circulation. Your immune system is designed to detect these foreign invaders, launch an attack, and kill the infectious microbes—but sometimes the defense doesn’t work as planned.

When this happens, the infection progresses and the immune system battles even harder by releasing more infection-fighting chemicals. In rare cases, rather than being helpful, these extra chemicals begin to overwhelm the body. As in a game of dominoes, this can then lead to further failures of the body’s processes.

Sepsis occurs when an already-present infection spirals out of control and begins to cause organ damage, and even death. The term “septic shock” is used to describe what’s happening when a person’s blood pressure is low, oxygen delivery to vital organs is compromised, and the threat of death is imminent.

How does sepsis affect the bowels?

Sepsis and critical illness cause significant dysfunction in the intestinal barrier, leading to hyperpermeability, allowing luminal contents to escape their natural environment. In preclinical models of sepsis, alterations in tight junctions occur as early as one hour after the onset of sepsis, and intestinal hyperpermeability persists for at least 48 hours. This is associated with increased claudin 2 and junctional adhesion molecule A, decreased claudin 5 and occludin in the small intestine of both cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia. Colonic tight junctions are also impacted by CLP, with alterations in cellular localization of claudins 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8, and upregulation of claudin 2. A marked decrease in zonula occludens-1 is seen only in pneumonia (and not CLP), suggesting that the mechanisms underlying barrier dysfunction may be mediated via a combination of a common host response and a more specific response modulated by the source of sepsis.

Intestinal tight junction is closely associated with the peri-junctional actin-myosin ring, which is phosphorylated by myosin light chain kinase (MLCK). Myosin light chain kinase activation is a common finding seen with bacterial infection and is associated with increases in IL-6, TNF, and IL-1β that further activate MLCK in a feed forward mechanism. Inhibiting MLCK in a murine model of burn injury results in improved barrier function and tight junction rearrangement, while a similar strategy results in a decrease in bacterial translocation and intestinal cytokine production in a model of binge ethanol followed by burn injury.

What are the late warning signs of sepsis?

SymptomsChange in mental status. Fast, shallow breathing. Sweating for no clear reason. Feeling lightheaded. Shivering. Symptoms specific to the type of infection, such as painful urination from a urinary tract infection or worsening cough from pneumonia.

Sepsis is a serious condition in which the body responds improperly to an infection. The infection-fighting processes turn on the body, causing the organs to work poorly.

Sepsis may progress to septic shock. This is a dramatic drop in blood pressure that can damage the lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs. When the damage is severe, it can lead to death.

Early treatment of sepsis improves chances for survival.

What is the last stage of severe sepsis?

Septic shock: Septic shock is the last stage of sepsis and is defined by extremely low blood pressure, despite lots of IV (intravenous) fluids.

Can you survive septic shock?. Septic shock is a severe medical condition. The survival rate is low, but people do survive. Survival depends on your age, health, cause of the condition, if you’ve had organ failure and how quickly you receive treatment. Without treatment, most people die of septic shock. With treatment, 30% to 40% of people with septic shock die.

What is the most common cause of septic shock?. Sepsis causes septic shock. Bacterial infections are the most common cause of sepsis. The source of the infection can be anywhere in your body. Most often, the infection will start in your lungs, abdomen or urinary tract. In some people, toxins are released by the bacteria and get into your bloodstream. This causes sepsis.

What are the three stages of sepsis?. Sepsis can be divided into three stages. The stages are sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock:

How long does it take to feel normal after sepsis?

You might continue to have physical and emotional symptoms. These can last for months, or even years, after you had sepsis.

These long-term effects are sometimes called post-sepsis syndrome, and can include:

• Feeling very tired and weak, and difficulty sleeping
• lack of appetite
• getting ill more often
• changes in your mood, or anxiety or depression
• nightmares or flashbacks
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Treatment for post-sepsis syndrome. Most symptoms of post-sepsis syndrome should get better on their own. But it can take time.

There are things you can do to help with some long-term effects.

What organ shuts down first with sepsis?

Organ failure, including kidney failure, is a hallmark of sepsis. As the body is overwhelmed, its organs begin to shut down, causing even more problems. The kidneys are often among the first to be affected.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, one of the major causes of acute kidney injury (also called AKI) is sepsis. Some studies have found that between 32% and 48% of acute kidney injury cases were caused by sepsis.

What kidneys do. Most people are born with two kidneys. It is possible to live with one kidney, and many people do. Located in the lower back, these bean-shaped organs are each about the size of your fist.

What is sepsis diarrhea?

Clostridioides difficile, often called C. difficile or C. diff., is a bacteria spread by microscopic spores. It used to be called Clostridium difficile. The bacteria cause inflammation of the gut or colon – colitis. This can lead to moderate-to-severe diarrhea, and sometimes sepsis, which can develop as the body tries to fight the infection.

Sepsis, which was often called blood poisoning, is the body’s life-threatening response to infection. Like strokes or heart attacks, sepsis is a medical emergency that requires rapid diagnosis and treatment. Worldwide, one-third of people who develop sepsis die. Many who survive are left with life-changing effects, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain and fatigue, organ dysfunction (don’t work properly), and/or amputations.

Most C. difficile infections occur in hospitals or healthcare facilities. These are called healthcare-acquired infections, or HAIs. However, physicians are finding that more and more, people are coming into contact with the bacteria in the community.

Suggested Citation: Sepsis Alliance. Sepsis and C. difficile. 2023. sepsis. org/sepsisand/c-difficile/