James M. Benton

Survivor

Hello to whomever decides to read my testimony of my experience with septic shock. Coming up almost to the day will mark 1 year since I was diagnosed with this virus. My case happens quite fast and I mean in less than 24 hours fast. I developed the infection from a tooth that cracked the night before. I remember waking up that morning roughly around 4am with terrible chills and a 102 degree fever. So I did what most would do and took about 800mg of Ibuprofen and fell back asleep. (Sepsis and Dental Health)

Well, when I woke up a few hours later the fever was gone but I had slight swelling and bruising under my left eye. Well I go get some antibiotics filled and take them and fell back asleep. I wake up around 1pm and now my cheek looks like I got into a bar fight and the fever is back.

What was different this time is that the chills I had were so bad that my body was shaking like I was seizing. So again I take more Ibuprofen and another antibiotic and lay back down. I wake up around 5pm and this time the left side of my face is so swollen my eye is shut and I can barely talk. Not to mention the fact that I was in so much pain I didn’t want to move.

By this point I am getting very worried because it’s getting worse at an alarming rate. So I go to the ER and they rush me into a room and get an IV started. They do a blood test and the diagnosis came back as septic shock. The level of it in my bloodstream showed that if I had waited another hour or so I would have been arriving in an ambulance. And the reason being that I would have started experiencing organ failure and even death.

So to whomever reads my experience with this virus if you suspect you or anyone you know has it DO NOT hesitate to seek medical attention. Especially with how fast it can complicate things. I lucked out but I know others haven’t and a lot didn’t come out unscathed. So hopefully this raises awareness and to those other survivors I say God bless and thank you.

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