Doctors diagnosed him with anxiety…it was sepsis

“I’m incredibly lucky to have escaped.“Joe DuPont, a 28-year-old American from California, speaks out to warn of the risks faced by people, like him, victims of a misdiagnosis. This athletic man in excellent physical shape testifies in the Daily Mailafter having narrowly missed losing his life following a banal visit to the hospital.

A “simple” anxiety… Really?

Her story begins in late April 2024, when Joe DuPont notices red spots on her neck, chest, and other parts of her body. Nothing to worry about solid Joe, who thinks it’s simply a benign skin reaction. The young man who works in the laboratory sector, however, begins to think that something is wrong when pus begins to ooze from the rash in question.

He therefore decides to go to the hospital to try to understand what is going on. If Joe DuPont is not yet really concerned about the situation, he is certainly not the only one. As calmly as possible, the doctors reassured him. Their diagnosis? Joe “simply” suffers from a skin infection and severe anxiety. Nothing too bad anyway… They even just prescribed him a steroid cream and oral antibiotics.

Also read: 45-year-old woman in intensive care after violent reaction to ibuprofen

“I felt fluid rushing into my legs.”

At the risk of revealing the rest of his story to you, this diagnosis will prove disastrous for the young man. Less than 24 hours later, his legs begin to shake and Joe feels spasms throughout his body. “I took this as a sign that maybe my body was healing“, he confided to the Daily Mail. However, the next day, the situation became critical. “When I stood up, I felt fluid rushing into my legs, as if fluid was literally collecting in my sandals.“

He therefore decides to return to the hospital. It was a good thing for him, because on the road, his heart beats harder and harder, while he begins to lose his vision and feels the liquid spreading throughout his body. Directly taken to the emergency room, the doctors finally gave him an electrocardiogram, which revealed irregular heartbeats and the presence of fluid around the heart.

Frequent symptoms of the development of sepsis. This is what Joe DuPont was really suffering from. The Pasteur Institute characterizes this disease, also called sepsis, as being “the consequence of a serious infection which generally begins locally (peritonitis, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, catheter infection, etc.)“.

What is sepsis?

More specifically, sepsis corresponds to the presence of germs (bacteria, viruses or fungi) in the blood after a mild infection. It can also be of cutaneous origin, such as with a poorly treated wound, a boil or even a whitlow. Germs multiply and then spread throughout the body.

Sepsis, whose progression is insidious, is all the more serious in very young children, the elderly or those who have a more fragile defense system. Finally taken care of in time and treated with antibiotics, Joe DuPont was lucky that the infection did not directly reach the heart. He was finally able to leave the hospital and today is raising awareness among Americans about the risk of medical errors and sepsis.

This infectious disease mainly affects “already vulnerable individuals, newborns and the elderly, but can affect people without prior illness“, indicates the Pasteur Institute, which estimates”at 11 million the number of deaths per year from sepsis“.