Just curious - can one fully recover from Septic Shock?

[gate_pourri]

I have a coworker who tends to 'over-embellish' everything... Such as she has a cold and in her story telling of it the next week she was 'dying' or a plane she was on hit mild turbulence and in her retelling of it, the plane practically crashed, everyone was crying and screaming, a flight attendant is running through the aisles yelling 'repent', etc, etc.

Anyway, today we were all speaking about something (I can't even recall what the topic was anymore) and somehow we got to the topic of hospitalizations and she begins telling us that she almost died after getting a nasty cut on her hand. She says she went into septic shock, had 'minor' organ failure and was hospitalized for over a month. But, luckily she fully recovered... and today she has no ill effects from that.

So, my question for the great Dis is... Can someone actually fully recover from septic shock? My brief Google-ing shows that it is unlikely to have no long-term side effects... But, what do I know? Can organs which has begin to shut down - start back up again and act like normal??? I always figured once a major organ (lets say, a liver) begins to shut down, you will need lifelong treatment and/or a new one...

 

[minniebeth]

Yes, it's possible, I know several people who have had amazing recoveries from septic shock, however, with your co-worker's retelling of accounts, it does sound a somewhat embellished. You never know though, I know people who's stories are very dramatic and sad but they are all true.

 

[sunnyday123]

My father was just in the hospital with sepsis and pnuemonia. You can recover from it, he did. However, once your organs start shutting down, they can't "un-shut down." They either do or don't. They were watching him very closely because they first one that starts are the kidneys. Several nurses told me if that happened, the others would start failing as well.

I would ask in detail how they reversed the affects of organ failure, does she need dialysis, etc now.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My sister's MIL has recovered twice at least. It is possible.

 

[IloveDMB]

My father was just in the hospital with sepsis and pnuemonia. You can recover from it, he did. However, once your organs start shutting down, they can't "un-shut down." They either do or don't. They were watching him very closely because they first one that starts are the kidneys. Several nurses told me if that happened, the others would start failing as well.

I would ask in detail how they reversed the affects of organ failure, does she need dialysis, etc now.

That is not true. You can recover from organ failure. I've had patients who have had kidney failure, were on dialysis for a few weeks and slowly but surely, their kidneys recovered. They are no longer on dialysis, and are no longer in kidney failure.

 

[gate_pourri]

Thanks for the responses so far everyone. I've work with this lady for over a year and am used to pretty much blowing off everything she says.

But, with this story, she has this really nasty looking scar that starts mid-hand and goes pretty far up her arm. The strange thing is, when you ask her about it, she gets very quiet and doesn't say anything except she doesn't want to talk about it. Which is VERY different from her typical "woe is me... look at me... how horrible is everything I have ever experienced..." attitude. This is the main reason I initially questioned her story, instead of just 'blowing' it off like everything else she says.

Hmm... Maybe I'll question her a bit more tomorrow.

 

[disneyfan007]

My husband was in this situation two years ago. Yes he did recover to a point. His kidneys took and hit and was on dialysis for several weeks usually every day of the week. Then one day they decided to work on their own. However, his kidneys are not 100% and never will be again. He does have to have blood work every six months to make sure his levels stay where they need to.

 

[laurie31]

It is possible to recover from organ failure, it's just very rare.

I've seen it happen twice personally.

One was DH's grandmother. She was in ICU with pneumonia and was already in acute respiratory failure. When her kidneys also failed, they called in the family, as she had a living will that stated no dialysis.

However, her kidneys began to function again and she never required dialysis. She fully recovered and loved 7 more years. This was considered by us (and her doctors) to be a miracle.

I also knew someone who had encephalitis and went into renal failure. They never thought he would live, much less recover. He finally regained consciousness, but did require dialysis for months. They thought that would be permanent too, but he did regain renal function as well. He's now a pretty normal guy now; you'd never know he was that sick about 15 years ago.

So it's possible, but very uncommon. usually even if you survive, you have a very long recovery. If this is true about your co-worker, she's very lucky not to have any lasting effects.

 

[freepixie]

My aunt went septic and recovered - it was back in 2005 I think - she thought she had a hemorrhoid but turns out it was an abcess. They took her in for emergency surgery but the poison still got in her blood stream and she became septic. Was in the ICU for a few days, in a regular room later, released from the hospital within a week. Out of work for a while, but she recovered from it!

 

[tihor1]

Seems like the post was started with a joke but it went on to become a serious talk so I wanted to add. I am myself a survivor of the Kidney failure, I had an acute kidney failure, and I didn't know about it until I went to ER for non-stop vomit, and back pain which later doctor told me my kidney was injured due to excessive physical training ( I am in the military) and dehydration. My kidney took about a month and a half to recover but I still feel the pain sometime. So although I am medically fully recovered but in reality I am not 100% of what I was before this happened.
Luckily military took care of me else I would be paying some serious medical bills.
So, is full recovery possible?
May be, and maybe not. It's been almost a year now I still feel some pain sometime.