NEWLY DIAGNOSED AND WONDERING

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andres
New User
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:57 pm

NEWLY DIAGNOSED AND WONDERING

Postby andres » Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:48 pm

Hey everyone,

I’m so happy to have found this place since I have just been diagnosed last week, and i tend to be the anxious type.

I am a 21 year old man, For the past month and a half I have had an odd discomfort in my abdominal region (lower slightly towards the left side) and then two weeks ago I started having consecutive loose stools for days, i would wake up feeling absolutely nauseous, white tongue, gas, and no appetite, with vomiting if I dare tried to eat to the point where I stopped going to work for a week. At first I thought it was an STI, but after a test I came back negative. I went to the walk in clinic and was told it was probably a stomach flu, or gastroenteritis, so I was prescribed pantoprazole, didn’t help anything. Two days ago, after a day or two of more formed stools, I woke up early to strong watery stools, at this point i had lost weight and I was taken to the ER by my parents and diagnosed with C. difficile.

I am wondering where I had gotten this though, I had not been to a hospital for a few months, other than my physicians office once and the one walk in clinic, which I didn’t use the washroom or touch anything specifically. I also haven’t been on antibiotics for a bit under a year. That still confuses me in my various googles.

I was prescribed metronidazole, which in my read of the forums seems to be the worst of the three I should take, I am having light abdominal cramps in different areas now two days into it, but my nausea has diminished as has my watery stools. (solid, but tend to break after a minute or two) I am wondering if I should tell my physician to change me to a different antibiotic?

I’m a genuinely healthy adult, with little to no history of health issues, looking for few takes just to let me sleep at night, thanks!

Kuro
Contributor
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:12 pm

Re: NEWLY DIAGNOSED AND WONDERING

Postby Kuro » Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:14 am

Hi andres,

Sorry about your diagnosis, but don't worry. You're young and you'll bounce back from this. :) 80% of people recover in 1-2 doses of meds.

I was diagnosed a little after my 33rd birthday in early February. Like you, I had no idea how I had gotten it and no antibiotic use. We're not the only cases like this, so don't feel strange! Picking it up can be as simple as touching a surface someone else touched without washing their hands post-bathroom. You could've inhaled a spore at the hospital, the clinic, just about anywhere. Toss in something which throws off the balance in your gut flora and CDIFF can grow out of control.

As I think back on it more, I often wonder if I picked up a spore when visiting my mom in the hospital a year ago, or my dying grandmother in the nursing home a couple of years before that. I guess I'll never really know, but it doesn't much matter.

You can expect your stool to be off for a while after CDIFF. It's just one of those effects it has on you. If you're feeling improvement without too many bad side effects, you could always see how you do on the full course of Flagyl. However, the official first line medication according to the FDA is Vancomycin. It can be expensive, so if you decide to switch and don't have insurance, see if you can get the liquid form. It's a lot cheaper.

Hang in there!

AllisS
Long Time Contributor
Posts: 1889
Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2012 10:52 pm

Re: NEWLY DIAGNOSED AND WONDERING

Postby AllisS » Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:23 pm

Hi Andres, welcome to the site. When you have a chance, please take a look at the guidelines for all new posters, which you'll find in the first entry of the intro forum.

C. difficile is increasingly prevalent in the community -- i.e., outside of medical settings -- and though recent or current use of a wide-spectrum antibiotic is the most frequent trigger, there are many, like yourself, for whom the proximate cause is a mystery.

If your symptoms, especially watery diarrhea, return, you should definitely ask to be switched either to vancomycin or, better yet, Dificid. Flagyl is no longer recommended as first-line treatment for C. diff.

Kuro: inhalation of a spore could occur only in instances where an episode of diarrhea was uncontained, as in a nursing home. C. diff isn't transmitted via the airborne route; someone has to actually ingest a spore, as would happen if a contaminated surface was touched and then someone touched their own mouth or nose.

Allison
If your illness was preceded by use of a medication, e.g., an antibiotic, please fill out an FDA Adverse Event Report at http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/default.htm


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