Wife recently "beat" c diff but doesn't feel like a victory
Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 4:52 pm
My wife (32 years old) was diagnosed with c diff after a month and a half of struggling to figure it out. She had taken antibiotics in January for a sinus thing, then we went on vacation in the Dominican in February and we both got ill (and our daughter) with diarrhea. Although my daughter and I got over it after 2 days, she never did.
It was coming and going but not great so our family doctor prescribed cipro while stool test was being done.
Fevers started and worse BMs so we went to emergency and they did a test there and indicated no cultures or bacterial infections. So she stopped cipro and she was advised to do a c diff test.
Symptoms kind of went away and came back again and she did a c diff test in March and came back positive.
Family physician figured since she had it a while we went right to Vanco 125mg.
After 6 days abdominal cramps were worse, fever was worse, generally overall worse so we went back to emergency. They decided to double her prescription to 250mg. 6 days after that same story so we met the infectious disease specialist and she wrote a prescription for fidaxomicin (difficid).
2 days on Dificid and she developed Erythema Nodosum (lesion bumps) on her shins which might have been caused by the medication (we don't know for sure)
Back to emergency and they ran another c diff test and it was negative! GI specialist checked her out quickly and said she just has a seriously angry bowel and needs time to heal and discharged her.
Great! We can stop the medication! Maybe she just didn't react well to the antibiotics all this time.
Well 5 days later she is still having mild fevers, diarrhea (although less per day), sometimes 3 intense cramps a day, and night sweats!
GI said there isn't much he can check at this time (we've done CT scans, multiple xrays and all blood works, urine works etc) other than if we think it's really bad to go to emergency again and maybe they will decide to do an urgent care colonoscopy.
My wife and I think that's not a great idea at this time to flush her system in order to do a colonoscopy. But my God we are 2 very healthy people and this has certainly drained us completely. Canadian health care (in terms of going through emergency) is an awful experience. I'd drive to the Cleveland Clinic, or we know someone at Lennox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, but I don't think they would be able to do anything different for her unfortunately.
I couldn't find any correlation on Google about Erythema Nodosum with c diff, they usually correlate it with IBD and Crohn's, but she's never had a single stomach problem in her life and we are pretty aware of the environmental cause here... But that combined with mild fevers 5 days after finishing treatment has me slightly concerned.
It was coming and going but not great so our family doctor prescribed cipro while stool test was being done.
Fevers started and worse BMs so we went to emergency and they did a test there and indicated no cultures or bacterial infections. So she stopped cipro and she was advised to do a c diff test.
Symptoms kind of went away and came back again and she did a c diff test in March and came back positive.
Family physician figured since she had it a while we went right to Vanco 125mg.
After 6 days abdominal cramps were worse, fever was worse, generally overall worse so we went back to emergency. They decided to double her prescription to 250mg. 6 days after that same story so we met the infectious disease specialist and she wrote a prescription for fidaxomicin (difficid).
2 days on Dificid and she developed Erythema Nodosum (lesion bumps) on her shins which might have been caused by the medication (we don't know for sure)
Back to emergency and they ran another c diff test and it was negative! GI specialist checked her out quickly and said she just has a seriously angry bowel and needs time to heal and discharged her.
Great! We can stop the medication! Maybe she just didn't react well to the antibiotics all this time.
Well 5 days later she is still having mild fevers, diarrhea (although less per day), sometimes 3 intense cramps a day, and night sweats!
GI said there isn't much he can check at this time (we've done CT scans, multiple xrays and all blood works, urine works etc) other than if we think it's really bad to go to emergency again and maybe they will decide to do an urgent care colonoscopy.
My wife and I think that's not a great idea at this time to flush her system in order to do a colonoscopy. But my God we are 2 very healthy people and this has certainly drained us completely. Canadian health care (in terms of going through emergency) is an awful experience. I'd drive to the Cleveland Clinic, or we know someone at Lennox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, but I don't think they would be able to do anything different for her unfortunately.
I couldn't find any correlation on Google about Erythema Nodosum with c diff, they usually correlate it with IBD and Crohn's, but she's never had a single stomach problem in her life and we are pretty aware of the environmental cause here... But that combined with mild fevers 5 days after finishing treatment has me slightly concerned.