Question Regarding Testing

[CACB]

Hi everyone!

I was diagnosed/tested positive with C diff after my appendectomy in the hospital about 2 months ago. Started on Flagyl in the hospital via IV, but was shortly moved to liquid Vanco by ID doctor on second day. Went home and took Vanco pills 4 times a day for 10 days, but relapsed immediately after stopping, and took 1 more round of Vanco with Kefir and probiotics which seemed to do the trick. However, my stools have been all over the place from fine, to mushy, to even some mucus diarrhea. I tested last week and got my results today as negative. However, I was taking Florastor and Kefir the day before testing. I’m just concerned my negative was false as no one told me to stop probiotics or anything before testing. Still get some stomach bloats and stool all over the place, but no fever and no running to the bathroom ever 5 minutes; just seem to have some soft diarrhea with mucus and bloating. Could this just be normal healing? I got the infection in the first place from hospital and being on a cephalosporin antibiotic.

Thank you so much in advance! I’m a first timer sufferer and getting married in 3 months; just want to out this stressful disease behind me.

[beth22]

Hello CACB and welcome to the site. You will find more information for new posters in the first forum.

Probiotics and kefir will not give you a false negative on a c diff test. Many people have what you describe after completing treatment and it takes time for the gut flora to repopulate and things to get to a more normal pattern. I had lots of issues with vanco. It seems to have killed off a lot of my good bacteria. Give it some time and eat what agrees with you. M can be an inflammatory response and some foods for some people can trigger that. Some people did not do well with gluten or dairy. I could not even tolerate yogurt, for example. If you get watery D again, then that is different, but these types of stools are pretty typical.

[Ali-Mar]

Normally if you test right after finishing the antibiotic you could test false negative. I don't recall if I had to wait one or two weeks after finishing the antibiotic to get tested again. Did you test right after you completed antibiotics?