Oh..but I dont like yogurt...

[Suezer]

Seriously..this is the response I get from people when warning them about taking antibiotics.


2 of my friends had sinus infections at the same time as me. 1 of them made it 7 days and decided to take antibiotics. The other made it 9 days and did the same. I asked them to please try to eat some yogurt between doses..they know vey well what I have gone through,saw me looking like death not so long ago. They simply shrugged and said "Well, I dont like yogurt. I will just make sure I eat something before I take the medicine."

NOW this one really makes me want to scream..my other friend is on a maintenance schedule of antibiotics..a pill every day "Just in case" for UTIs.
Where is her doctor? I want to slap him! She also "doesn't like yogurt."

I seriously wonder if they think I am just some freak who got sick, or maybe they think nothing can or will ever happen to them. I did my part I warned them,theres not much else I can do except just shake my head and roll my eyes.

There is this yahoo group for C Diff, I dont really read there much, but when someone posts there I get an e mail copy of it..there are MORE and MORE people every day getting C DIFF. There is one who is 7 months pregnant who just got it. Alot of referrals there to this site, which is good,but it is very alarming how often this is occuring in persons "outside the hospital setting, and of various ages..so many more young ,otherwise healthy people..

And about those who "dont like yogurt"..
I am sure they wont like:
Awful pain, horrid "D", loss of control of ones life,finances,health. Throw in there the awful depression and desperation that seems relentless to one who has recurrences, and doctors who dont know what to do after they have already over prescribed antibiotics to their patients. How about the constant mind wracking fear of relapse. Not being able to plan any fun events because everything revolves around your meds or the what "ifs'. The isolation one feels due to noone understands this disease. I could go on forever here and still not even touch how horrible this illness is. But hey, I guess if people dont like yogurt,thats their right to chose what they put in their mouth.

Maybe they prefer pills and I should just suggest probiotics, but realistically, most people will not make that effort even with the best advises and warnings. Sad but true!

[trob25]

I understand your frustration with them, I'm in much them same boat with my family. When they go an antibiotics I'm always saying "eat yogurt, take acidophilus" but they eat it one day, or take acidophilus twice and then don't care.

The problem is they won't ever care, anyone, until they get C-Diff because no one understands how bad this is until they get it. I was one of them before. I had heard of C-Diff as my mom always worked in hospitals, but she only ever called it "highly contagious D" which sounded bad enough, but it made it seem like a disease for sick, hospitalized old people I would never get in my life.

As a kid through my early 20s, I was also on abs non-stop, 5+ sinus infections a year and I was on abs for every one. Used to get bronchitis to. Ear infections, Lyme disease and not one of my three main doctors ever suggested I eat yogurt or take probiotics until after I got C-Diff, and that was just one of them! And honestly, I used to hate the way yogurt tasted as I'm the worst finicky eater of all time lol. But you know what? I learned to enjoy it after having C-Diff, funny what trying something over a few weeks can do to your taste buds.

It's a sad situation, I'm like you now, but before C-Diff I was probably more like your friends. Sum it up to the lack of coverage on C-Diff and the fact that doctors dismiss it as nothing that you should ever worry about. People think doctors are gods here, I've learned, after Lyme misdiagnosis, GIs who don't know anything about C-Diff, and wrong prescriptions that they are just educated guessers. And if these gods don't tell them to eat yogurt and take culturelle, they won't.

[Bobbie]

"Got to be there to understand" sums it up. Or "Walk a mile in my shoes." No one really understands anything unless they've experienced it.

I've had friends for years who know my medical situation but l expose me to their "little cold." They run to the doc. for an antibiotic with every sneeze.

For years, I, too was able to take antibiotics for bronchitis/sinus infections but didn't take them more than once or twice a year, but what "used to" work for sinus infections (never had one until my late 40's) stopped working, so the allergist went to Vantin -- a "big gun." I was 52 and in good health. Now, I am older and wiser and in poor health as age is catching up with the problems caused by C. diff. Oh, to do my life over!!!!

(I knew about C. diff. because my son had C. diff. in l979 and again 6 yrs. later. I went to a GI immediately, went on Vanco. immediately, and it still took me 4 yrs. to get over my initial bout.)

You'll never convince anyone of the horrors of having C. diff. unless they (or a loved one ) has it.

PS. I am on one Macrobid (50 mg.) of Macrobid a day to prevent UTI's & also have IC so don't have a choice. (I checked this numerous places.). Am also on a PPI for acid reflux/hiatal hernia so I am a prime candidate for another bout of C. diff. (would be my 3rd.) I try not to think about it.

[cindym]

I usually explain it ONE time to friends and family and have learned through the years they all consider me to be a FREAK of nature. It has not stopped any of them from taking antibiotics! Even my 92 year old mother-in-law will take anyone's left over antibiotics when she gets hemmroids saying it helps with only 2 or 3 of them--IS THIS NOT CRAZY?
They all have witnessed my situation for 7+ years and still think nothing of it. My youngest daughter (problem child- LOL) gets very irritated with me when I get upset that my grandkids are given back to back antibiotics and usually ends up very rudely saying "Give me a break Mother, everyone is not going to get cdiff like you!" It breaks my heart that not only do we not get the recognition that this beast deserves but also our immediate families are so tuned out to their own ability of getting this thing. I just quit speaking out and decided- its their life and if they think they are super human and above cdiff then for their sakes I hope they are.