C-Diff (Clostridium difficile)

[mackerel]

One of my colleagues was just diagnosed with this and she's gutted. We're all sad about it as it came on so sudden.

Anyone dealing with this or know much about it?

[pscot]

1. It took me 4 months and massive doses

of antibiotics to get rid of it. It put my life on hold and caused me a lot of ancillary grief. It does take weight off though.

[Warpy]

2. I could diagnose it the minute I stepped off the elevator in the hospital.

If we're colonized with it, the other bacteria in our guts keep it in check. If we're really weakened and/or if we've been on heavy antibiotics, the good stuff is killed off and c. diff strikes. It is also highly infectious and one outbreak where I worked was traced to a hand held electronic thermometer that never got near a patient's butt. It's the most common hospital acquired disease.

Oral vancomycin and Fidaxomycin will kill it. In stubborn cases, probiotics and even stool transfers to recolonize the gut with bacteria from a healthy donor will take care of it.

If you've never smelled it, I hope your luck holds out.

[mackerel]

3. She has had her fair share of AB's but she hasn't been in the hospital since January 2013.

Is it contagious? She was thinking she would be out just this week but it sounds like she will be out much longer. When she called to tell us the diagnosis she was crying. She is so much pain.

[Warpy]

5. It's extremely contagious

and I hope she's keeping the toilet meticulously clean and scrubbing her hands every time she has a nasty stool. Those are the ways to stop it, along with antibiotics, else she reinfects herself from her own environment.

It might be time for her to talk to her doc about probiotics and/or a stool transfusion.

[mackerel]

4. How contagious is this does anyone know?

[lululu]

6. I've had this since last July

got it after Clindamycin for an infection. Nothing has worked to fix the GI effects. I'm on my second GI doctor, this one at a teaching hospital.

As far as I know, they don't understand what actually goes wrong with the GI system. Doctors don't seem to take it IBS seriously. I have the constipation-predominate variation and if one more person tells me to eat Raisin Bran, like that never occurred to me, I will throw them off a roof. I have tried everything - diet, exercise, probiotics.

[mackerel]

7. Senna?

[lululu]

8. I'll look at it, thanks.

Already on Miralax and a stool softener twice a day and occasionally Dulcolax. I know, TMI.

[mackerel]

10. I can't imagine why anyone would tell you to eat raisin bran. I'd more likely recommend something

more like prunes or prune juice. I buy the Nature's Way Senna for my sister and on occasion I take it too.

[TeeYiYi]

9. What do you mean by...

..."she's gutted." Sorry if I'm being thick.

C-Diff is bad news. I once ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks with it, after going to the emergency room, shitting blood and screaming in pain. The ER doctor threw my family out of the room and started grilling me about my sex life. He wanted to know if I had been shoving things up my butt. I told him, "Other than gerbils,...nothing." Seriously, nobody 'tutches the butt.'

They never did figure out what had caused it. I hadn't been on antibiotics for years. They tested me for everything, including HIV. The lead doctor finally decided that Lortabs had somehow been the cause. I don't know if I believe that but I was taking a lot of them at the time.

They gave me lots of IV antibiotics in the hospital but they finally cured it with Flagyl. I think I took Flagyl for at least a month after that.

TYY

[lululu]

11. gerbils

Good for you. I hate it when doctors assume the patient is somehow responsible for their symptoms.