Getting nervous

[PatmanMI]

Hello all,

I am on my 9th day after a 10 day course with vancomycin. The days after I was going a lot, but they at least had some mushy form. Yesterday I went about lot more in the morning with the consistency dropping as the day went on from formed to between 6 and 7 on Bristol scale, and had a decent amount of cramping until the evening (got better then as I could walk around). Then this morning I've had only 7s, and the most recent one had a foul odor. I know the 3 day rule, so I'm trying to be patient. I have been back to work for 2 days, so it's possible I caught a bug there or possibly from my wife as she was sick yesterday (hers could be a GI bug or a migraine, she didn't really feel good enough to talk last night so not sure).

My questions are:
Have you experienced days like this so near coming off the antibiotics and it not be a relapse?
If I reach 3 days of bad like this, should they retest for c diff or would they just start treating based on the symptoms.

I am already eating a bland diet, and the only new food I added recently was baked potato and that was Sunday and Monday, as I ate eggs last night. I have had IBS-D my whole life, so I'm hoping it's just that but my medications usually can slow it a bit which right now they aren't touching. It's hard to not fear a relapse, I'm trying to stay positive but am definitely nervous.

[Obreezy]

PatmanMI, unfortunately the only thing you can do is wait and see. If you are noticing that this is significantly worse than your usual IBS-D and it lasts for 3 or more days, I’d contact your doctor. Sometimes doctors want to retest, other times they will just treat right away. Best of luck and I hope it’s just a bad IBS flare-up

[beth22]

Yes, contact your doctor. It is probably hard to tell IBS-D apart from C diff. Perhaps the doctor will want to test or at least advise you as to what to do.

[PatmanMI]

Just a quick update.

I did contact the doctor, they said that one bad day is not fun, but they'd want multiple days in a row (like the 3 day rule). I went 5 type 7 on Wednesday morning (all done before 7am) and then that was it for the day. Yesterday went better, as some form kind of came back (type 6ish) but only really went twice. Today thus far I've gone only 3, with the consistency dropping as day went on but none watery so still an improvement. I'm thankful that it got better at least, and hope that taking things slow and steady will help it to continue to progress.

[Musings]

I was all over the place in early recovery after a course of Vanco. It's terrifying but keep in mind that c.diff only gets worse so if you only have one bad day here and there that you are recovering. Hope your bad days become less and less sooner than later!