I am writing on this subject because it is a very important one. Hopefully, I can help save someone's life by passing on this information. I am very familiar with it because my husband developed this infection and his physician saved his life.
Vibrio is a bacteria that lives in warm, coastal waters, salt water and brackish water. Brackish water is a combination of fresh and salt water. With global warming, the coastal waters have become much warmer which provides the perfect environment for the vibrio to flourish. People who eat raw seafood like oysters can get vibrio into their gastrointestinal tract and become extremely ill; some cases have been fatal. People who have consumed raw seafood, may develop nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, abdominal cramps and diarrhea. If you develop any of these symptoms, you should seek medical attention immediately at the emergency room. Make sure you inform the emergency room physician that you recently ate raw seafood.
Vibrio can also get into any open wounds or cracks in your skin while at the beach or fishing. Anyone can get a vibrio infection but people who have certain medical conditions such as diabetes, liver disease, cancer, HIV or other immune-compromised diseases are more prone to getting it. Once the vibrio gets into an open wound, it can cause a severe infection and possibly spread to the bloodstream. This can cause a person to become septic and need emergent intensive care treatment. Some symptoms include fever, chills, severely low blood pressure and skin lesions that appear as large blisters. Sometimes surgery is required to clean out the wound and blisters, or amputation of an extremity is necessary to save a person's life.
Diagnosis is made when vibrio is found by the lab in the wound, blood or stool of an infected person. When this occurs, treatment needs to urgent and aggressive. Intravenous fluids for hydration, medications to maintain adequate blood pressure, fever control and IV antibiotics are necessary.
According to the Center for Disease Control, approximately 80,000 cases of vibrio occur every year in the United States. Of those, approximately 52,000 cases are from people who had consumed raw food.
My husband developed vibrio while out fishing on his boat one day. A stingray that I caught splashed saltwater on my husband's foot while trying to get the fishhook out of its mouth. The next day, my husband woke up in the morning with severe pain in his left leg. It hurt so bad he said, "it feels broken!" By 4 pm his left leg had become swollen, reddened, more painful and he had developed a fever. I finally got him to the ER at midnight. He was already septic with a fever of 102, a very low blood pressure and an oxygen saturation in the 70's. Normal oxygen saturation is 98-100%. The next morning, his left foot looked like the picture above! The hospital doctors put him on antibiotics but the lab couldn't identify the bacteria!
My husband's doctor came in and asked the lab if they had checked for vibrio but they hadn't. Sure enough, that's what they discovered! He was given the right antibiotics and needed many debridements of his left foot. He spent two weeks in the hospital and it took four months of wound care treatments at home until his foot finally healed. My husband's history included diabetes and liver disease. The CDC thought my husband had consumed raw seafood but he was strictly a steak and potatoes kind of guy.
So please be careful out there and make wise choices. Life is very precious!
Resources: The Center for Disease Control
Written by Denise Clark RN BCEN Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board