Starfield how to cure afflictions, injuries, and infections

Wondering how to cure Starfield afflictions, injuries, and infections? Traveling across the cosmos takes its toll, whether that’s from spacers or environmental hazards on alien planets. It’s only a matter of time before your character picks up an affliction, injury, or status effect, like contusions, frostbite, and heatstroke. You’ll want to cure these as soon as possible. Leaving them unchecked, you’ll have to shoulder nerfs, typically to health, carry capacity, and stamina.

Injuries, afflictions, and infections are caused by physical damage sustained either in combat or from fall damage or environmental factors – extreme ambient heat, extreme ambient cold, airborne contaminants, radiation, and so on.

The affliction and status effect system is pretty elaborate, so to help you navigate it all and keep your space-farer in good health, here’s how to cure Starfield afflictions, injuries, and status effects. If you haven’t already, get our take on Bethesda’s latest RPG in our Starfield review. And check up on the full Starfied quest list.

How to cure afflictions and injuries in Starfield 

Starfield inflictions can be healed by either visiting a doctor, consuming an aid item, or simply waiting until your character’s body heals up over time.

Healing at doctors, infirmaries, and Reliant Medical

You’ll find doctors and infirmaries in all the major cities in Starfield, including New Atlantis, Akila City, Cydonia, and Neon, but also on certain orbiting space stations and starships. Pay up the 400 credits healing fee and the doctor will heal and remove all afflictions, injuries, and status effects for you. Here’s a list of doctors and their locations we’ve found so far:

• Reliant Medical in New Atlantis, Jemison, Alpha Centauri System.
• Reliant Medical in Neon, Volii Alpha, Volii System.
• Infirmary in The Rock in Akila City, Cheyenne System.
• Reliant Medical in Cydonia, Mars, Sol System.
• Med bay onboard The Key orbiting Suvorov, Kryx System.

Curing afflictions with aid items

Along with food and general damage healers, such as Med Packs and Trauma Packs, Starfield features a vast range of consumable aid items that heal specific injuries and afflictions. You’ll find aid consumables throughout the Settled Systems, but can also craft your own at any Pharmaceutical Lab station, such as the one in the basement of The Lodge in New Atlantis.

To use an aid item to heal an affliction, open up your inventory and select the aid portion. Here you can sift through all the items you currently have. On the right will be a description of the item along with small color treatment icons denoting the specific afflictions or injuries the item heals.

Below the description is another icon that tells you of any afflictions you currently have. The idea here is to use items that have the same treatment icon as your affliction. Consume the item to heal the affliction. For example, a ‘Burn’ affliction is displayed as an orange symbol. Curing it with a ‘Heal Gel’ will remove it.

Here are the colored icons for afflictions in Starfield along with their significance:

• Orange – burns
• Blue – broken bones
• Pink – infections
• Red – wounds
• Yellow – breathing difficulties

Wait it out

Let’s start by saying that this method isn’t recommended or guaranteed. But for most Starfield afflictions, injuries, and infections, you can theoretically just wait it out. It won’t be fast or pretty, but your character has a chance of overcoming the ailments. You can also increase your chances by investing skill points into the Medicine skill. Hit Medicine Rank 4 and you unlock 50% additional healing from Med Packs, Trauma Packs, and Emergency Kits, but consuming one has a chance of curing an affliction.

Starfield affliction, injury, status, and cure list

Here’s a list of all the Starfield afflictions and aid item treatments we’ve come across so far:

• Addiction (Squall, Aurora, etc.) – Addichrone, Junk Flush
• Brain Injury- Injector, Snake Oil
• Concussion – Injector, Snake Oil
• Dislocated Limb – Anchored Immobilizers, Repairing Immobilizer
• Fractured Limb – Anchored Immobilizers, Repairing Immobilizer
• Fractured Skull – Immobilizer, Repairing Immobilizer
• Heatstroke – Injector, Snake Oil
• Hernia – Injector, Snake Oil
• Hypothermia – Injector, Snake Oil
• Lung Damage – Injector, Snake Oil
• Pneumonia – Injector, Snake Oil
• Poisoning – Injector, Snake Oil
• Radiation Poisoning – Injector, Snake Oil
• Sprain – Anchored Immobilizers, Immobilizer, Repairing Immobilizer
• Torn Muscle – Anchored Immobilizers, Immobilizer, Repairing Immobilizer
• Burns – Antibiotic Paste, Heal Gel, Heal Paste, Infused Bandages
• Frostbite – Antibiotic Paste, Heal Gel, Heal Paste, Infused Bandages
• Infections – Antibiotic Paste, Antibiotics, Penicillin X
• Contusions – Bandages, Infused Bandages, Repairing Immobilizer, Zipper Bandages
• Lacerations – Bandages, Infused Bandages, Repairing Immobilizer, Zipper Bandages
• Puncture Wounds – Bandages, Infused Bandages, Repairing Immobilizer, Zipper Bandages

Afflictions explained

Here are the mechanics that determine how afflictions work in Starfield:

• Severity – The more severe the affliction, the worse the symptoms. The worst ones have up to three symptoms. One example is Lung Damage reducing oxygen recovery.
• Prognosis – This rates an affliction as ‘Poor’, ‘Stable’, ‘Good’, or ‘Excellent’, depending on how likely the affliction is to go away on its own. A prognosis can improve over time but can worsen if the character is exposed to the same injury or infection.
• Symptoms – Below your prognosis, you’ll see the symptoms of the affliction and how they affect you. For example, a dislocated limb can result in a reduced carrying capacity, while lacerations can drain your oxygen whenever you take damage. Depending on how impactful the affliction is, you may want to get it sorted sooner rather than later.

How to avoid getting afflictions

Afflictions are typically caused by environmental damage and effects, such as thermal, corrosive, airborne, and radiation damage, such as from solar radiation, or particularly hot or cold planets. Your spacesuit will naturally protect you against some of these effects for a certain time, but once that protection runs out, you’ll need to find cover to avoid receiving any afflictions. 

Similarly, taking a large amount of fall damage can cause afflictions such as fractured or dislocated limbs. It may sound easy to avoid fall damage, but be wary of how gravity can affect your fall speed. A massive fall on a small moon may result in little to no fall damage, but even a short fall on a planet with strong gravity like Akila can deal a surprisingly high amount of damage.

For more help on your interstellar adventure, check out our guide covering the Starfield Lair of the Mantis puzzle solution. And here’s how to resolve the Starfield Alternating Current side quest. Here’s how to pick locks in Starfield to score extra high-quality loot.

How do you cure status effects in Starfield?

Simply visiting a medical facility and finding a doctor can cure status effects in Starfield.