[ANON POST] septic shock without treatment
Hi, I'm hoping you can help me out with this question.
The situation:
My novel takes place in dark ages Europe (early 500s AD). The character is British and he and the rest of the army are at war in Armorica right now. He was fighting another guy and got wounded, it got infected, and now he's going to die of septic shock. I'm going to say it was a gut wound because that seems to be one that is likely to lead to sepsis; it also seems like it could appear to not be very serious at first, which is not necessary for my story but would be nice.
The question is basically, how quickly does the disease progress? (How soon after the wound would it become infected? Would they know he was going to die at that point? How long before he becomes completely delirious/unconscious, and how much longer does he have after that point?) It is especially important to me to know when the last time he can talk coherently is.
If you know how they might try to treat this, that would be great too.
What I have searched:
I read a lot of articles on septic shock on WebMD and the like.
I searched for "septic shock" + various combinations of "death," "fatal," "within hours," "without treatment."
My problem is that all the sources I can find assume that you have modern medicine and want to treat the shock. Also, I think they consider it a bit tacky to say "this is how fast it can kill you." So I know all about the progression of the disease and the ways we can treat it, but not much about what happens if you don't treat it.
Oh, and I have also done lots of general research on Dark Ages Britain for this novel and never found anything about their medicine.
(Please forgive me if I left something out or didn't do this right; I've never used livejournal before!)
The situation:
My novel takes place in dark ages Europe (early 500s AD). The character is British and he and the rest of the army are at war in Armorica right now. He was fighting another guy and got wounded, it got infected, and now he's going to die of septic shock. I'm going to say it was a gut wound because that seems to be one that is likely to lead to sepsis; it also seems like it could appear to not be very serious at first, which is not necessary for my story but would be nice.
The question is basically, how quickly does the disease progress? (How soon after the wound would it become infected? Would they know he was going to die at that point? How long before he becomes completely delirious/unconscious, and how much longer does he have after that point?) It is especially important to me to know when the last time he can talk coherently is.
If you know how they might try to treat this, that would be great too.
What I have searched:
I read a lot of articles on septic shock on WebMD and the like.
I searched for "septic shock" + various combinations of "death," "fatal," "within hours," "without treatment."
My problem is that all the sources I can find assume that you have modern medicine and want to treat the shock. Also, I think they consider it a bit tacky to say "this is how fast it can kill you." So I know all about the progression of the disease and the ways we can treat it, but not much about what happens if you don't treat it.
Oh, and I have also done lots of general research on Dark Ages Britain for this novel and never found anything about their medicine.
(Please forgive me if I left something out or didn't do this right; I've never used livejournal before!)