What does it mean if you have Sepsis and whilte blood count goes up?

grandfather developed sepsis. white blood count is elevated today..

they are going to try and take him off the vent this week, last 2 blood cultures have been negative.. is that good??

septicaemia is cause by the presence of bacterias or yeast in blood. (septi means germs, emia means 'in the blood'). fighting the infection, white blood cells are elevated especially neutrophils (specialized blood cells against infection, they 'eat' bacterias) and some immatures neutrophils too.

at the hospital, a high temperature, with the presence high rates of WBC (white blood cells) can suspect the presence of a septicaemia. we do a test called hemoculture (its a bottle with nutriments in which we draw blood in, then put it in a machine set at 37C. if there is presence of bacteria, they will multiply inside the bottle and the machine detects the amount of CO2 generated from the bacterias.) if the hemoculture is positive, we first proceed to a gram stain to identify what family of bacteria we have. depending on that, we then put the bacteria on growth medias to identify precisely the bacteria type and species. we also perform an antibiogram to know at what antibiotic the bacteria is sensible (which on will work).

if not treated, the bacterias can multiply in the blood and the body, unable to fight the infection dyes. it can be fatal if not treated in time. it happened to me to call for a preliminary report of positive hemoculture and hear from the nurse 'sorry, but the patient is dead'. even then, we have to continue testing so that we can provide the cause of death.

well, that's about it from what i know.

bacteria in blood

he has a blood infection and your white count goes up because your body is trying to fight the infection good luck and God bless

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