Almost one month C. Diff free!

[Seth]

This is my first post. I want to start by saying thank you to this site's creators, moderators, and contributors. You have provided me with a lot of helpful information and support over the past several months.

I am a 33 year old male and have never had health problems to speak of until last year.

At the end of October I started feeling run down and having diarrhea ten to twelve times a day (eventually with blood). My primary care physician prescribed a short course of Cipro. Stool sample tests detected the parasite Giardia, so I met with a GI specialist who prescribed 500MG Flagyl three times a day. Things went downhill -- fevers, delirium, dehydration, arthritis -- and I was admitted to the hospital. The doctors at the hospital upped the Flagyl to 500MG four times a day. That seemed to get on top of the situation and allowed me to leave the hospital. Ultimately the diagnosis remained Giardiasis with reactive arthritis.

I was on Flagyl for a total of two weeks. The course ended, and I started feeling healthier by the day. Then after ten days, diarrhea up to a dozen times a day, nausea, fever, nasty stomach cramps and gurgling, dehydration. I went back to the doctor fearing the Giardia had come back, but stool samples were negative for Giardia and positive for C. Diff toxins. My PC and the GI specialist consulted and prescribed another course of Flagyl: one week of 500MG four times a day.

Flagyl's side effects are well documented for a reason. So I never felt healthy on Flagyl, but the drug seemed to keep C. Diff and associated diarrhea at bay. The second course ended. Two weeks passed, and the symptoms came back with a vengeance. My PC prescribed Flagyl again but advised me to wait to start the course until I submitted another stool sample. I submitted a sample and started Flagyl for a third time. This time the stool came back negative for C. Diff toxins. My PC advised me to stop the Flagyl. He was convinced it was something I had eaten or a stomach bug. Of course at this point I had been on either a liquid or BRAT diet for nearly two months. . .

Thankfully the GI specialist has had enough experience to know how stubborn C. Diff can be. He advised me to stay on Flagyl and taper over the course of a few weeks. Again the Flagyl made me feel lousy, but it controlled the C. Diff symptoms. Around this time I discovered the C. Diff Support Group and started taking probiotics -- Align and Culturelle once a day and a double dose of Floraster two times a day -- and eating Stonyfield Farm probiotic yogurt. As the taper progressed to two pills a day I started having symptoms again. On the day I tapered to one pill the diarrhea came full force. The GI doc didn't wait for another stool sample. He prescribed 125MG Vanco, starting with three pills a day and tapering for over a month. He also recommended that I take "probiotics" (no specific type or brand).

Vanco took two or three days to control my symptoms fully, and I started feeling improvement in my GI without any of the nasty side effects (some of them GI-related) of Flagyl. My last Vanco was on March 3. I'm still on Align, Culturelle, and two Floraster twice a day. It seems like the Vanco taper and probiotics have helped my body take control of the C. Diff.

A few thoughts before I sign off:

C. Diff seems to "tip" for me for lack of a better word. When things get bad, they get bad fast and hard. Both of my relapses occurred while I was at work, and during the first I was lucky to make it home.

Dehydration adds insult to injury. C. Diff is awful regardless, but during my second relapse drinking obscene amounts water and sparkling water helped soften the blow.

I still have bad days, though they are not as frequent or as bad now. It was reassuring to read that other people here have bad days and realize that a bad day doesn't necessarily mean a relapse.

Like others here, I find that Schweppes ginger ale is the most soothing of all the gingered ales. It definitely helps with the upset stomach when things are bad.

I was on clear liquid and BRAT during my relapses and still find that BRAT helps on the bad days.

Thank you for reading if you've made it this far. I wish all of you health and happiness.

Seth

[monacat]

i was happy to read your posting. it is encouraging.

[Kathy George]

Good luck to you. Some individuals do well on the tampering method. Others don't. I didn't do well on the tampring method, so I decided to do the Enema Home Infusions which worked for me. Hope you continue to do well.

[Bobbie]

Thanks for the thanks. It's always appreciated.

You made some good points. Your are so right in saying when C. diff. returns, it does so "with a vengeance." I can remember feeling fine and then feeling horrible two hours later.

You disproved the still prevelant theory amount many in the medical community that C. diff. is an infection of the elderly and/or health impaired. We've had many other posters who are young and healthy. So much for "expert opinion."

See FAQ-The Three Day Rule to help tell the difference between C. diff. and IBS.

Best of luck to you & thanks for posting.