arthritis symptoms

[beth22]

Does anyone know if c diff can cause arthritis symptoms or am I just getting old?

[Vikingjeff28]

I have not run into this with anyone nor myself but one thing I have found, anything is possible when C Diff wrecks your immune system. I should do a commercial for Ensure and Align Probiotics, they brought me back from the brink physically after all the antibiotic treatments. I still fight rashes, hives, irregular heartbeat from time to time while my immune system continues to strengthen and correct itself.

[beth22]

Ditto for the irregular heartbeat. It started with the c diff and every time I relapsed it got really bad a couple of days before, but I still have it now, just not as frequently or as severely. What a disease!

[Nancy1]

You can have reactive arthritis due to cdiff. I now have arthritis, which started 2.5 years post-cdiff, but my orthopedic surgeon says it's not due to cdiff. I am not sure that I agree, though.

[Bobbie]

Ditto here.

Some of us have developed multiple health problems after a long bout of C. diff. while others have emerged "unscathed." Who knows why? Genetics, aging, bad luck, stress, damage to the immune system from C. diff.???

Pre-C. diff., I was healthy except for allergies. Post-C. diff. I am a mess, but I am l6 years older

[beth22]

Thank you for the responses. As a result of the c diff and the PI-IBS I recently had deficiency in vitamin D and some of the other vitamin tests, although in normal range, were a little low, so maybe that can cause joint and muscle aches. When you can't eat vegetables and fruit it doesn't give you a chance to get many vitamins. Finally found a vitamin last week that I can tolerate halfway though - no minerals, just vitamins (One a Day Essentials) Hopefully, this will help matters and the Resource Breeze has vitamins too. Maybe it will boost my immune system. This school year I came down with one cold and respiratory infection after another because of being so run down, and I never did that before the c diff. I guess the best thing to try and do is to try and gain back the weight I lost and get as many good nutrients as I can without setting off the digestive problems. Quite a balancing act as I have discovered.

[MaryT]

Search the site for reactive arthritis. Many people have posted on the site having gotten it from the cdiff. My exhusband got it after having salmonella. People that carry a particular gene are more susceptible to it; but i think may be able to get it even if you don't carry the gene.

[klt03301]

Ditto on the irregular heartbeat...still have it and I stopped vanco 4/08.

[sks001]

Beth - Not a doctor, but my own personal opinion is that if you've had a really bad case of C-Diff or multiplle relapses, it can wreak havoc not only on your intestines and colon, but your whole immune system as well and all kinds of new strange things can happen. Every day since I was "supposedly" cured of C-Diff, have woke up feeling like been hit by a mack truck ... every bone and joint aches.

Last year, all of a sudden I couldn't raise my left arm and whole shoulder hurt so bad I was in tears. Called Neurologist I had seen for the Peripheral Neuropathy in both legs that Flagyl let me with and told him I thought I might have a frozen shoulder, and he didn't even ask me to come in, just scheduled a physical therapist to come out. Therapist told me it was not frozen shoulder, but most likely arthritis or reactive arthritis from the C-Diff. Did 2 sessions a week for about 8 or 10 weeks if I remember right, and gave me exercises to do on the other 5 days, some with stretch bands, and use moist heat pad. It still gets sore sometimes and I start the exercises again so it won't get bad like it did before. Boy was that a long many weeks trying to wash and fix hair and other things with only one arm.

The only thing I had prior to C-Diff was lower back pain, most likely from lifting a paraplegic brother. Now my whle spine and neck hurts. Just recently the very bottom of my tail bone is like a round bulb and hurts. Don't know if it's supposed to be that way naturally or if it is because I'm soooo thin that it is showing up. Supposed to have x-rays when I'm ever able to. Also recently, the outside of my left leg from knee to ankle has begun hurting quite badly.

Don't know if all this is due to C-Diff or not, or to just getting older, but was healthy all my life and had an iron stomach before having to have gallbladder removed and then god-awful C-Diff.

Hope you don't have arthritis ... that you're just having aches from C-Diff. Not sure, but think true different types of arthritis manifests itself with swollen joints, inflamation and pain. Here is a link to the WebMD arthritis site that I have a shortcut to on my desktop that I've been meaning to read if I ever feel up to it. You might like to take a look at it.

http://arthritis.webmd.com/

I'm sure there's more at the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic web sites.

[beth22]

Thanks Sandy. It does sound more like what you described. I had trouble raising my arm the other day and also the pain between the knee and ankle, but my muscles and joints also hurt. I called my doctor and he said it could be a virus . Who knows. I'm really tired too. Took a two hour nap today. I know that with the bacterial overgrowth that I have in the small intestine you can get fibromyalgia, but I had some of these symptoms last summer with the c diff for about a month. Then it got better.

I think with just being run down and not being able to get all the nutrients from food it probably does wreak havoc on my body. Like you, I had lower back pain sometimes and sometimes neck pain, but not pain down my arms and in my knees, fingers, and other joints. I was tested for lupus before they figured out I had c diff and that was negative. I've been reading to see what the difference is between reactive arthritis and other types of arthritis, but don't really know. I didn't think most arthritis hits your whole body all at once though - like you said - that a truck ran you over and that is what I feel like too.

I did ask the doctor if low estrogen could cause these symptoms and he said that it could, but right now I don't want to mess with using any. Too many things going on - have 8 more days to take of Xifaxan. I thought it might help the pain, but so far it hasn't.

Beth

[Bobbie]

Beth,
Be sure you take adequate calcium. I couldn't tolerate dairy products when I had active C. diff., and even though I took a calcium supplement, eviedently it wasn't enough, and I developed osteoporosis. A lot of women in my family have it so it is probably genetic, too, but I don't think it would have appeared so early if not for the malabsoprtion caused by the C. diff. Last fall, I fractured a vertebra in my back and am now on a vey pricey "shot" I have to give myself in the stomach.

Vit. D. is also important. chec with your physician regarding both calcium and Vit. D.

[cindym]

I am a reactive arthiritis patient thanks to good ole cdiff! I have not been able to tolerate all the anti-inflammatory drugs and have refused to take the big guns "Remicade, Enbrel, Humira, Methroxate" until which time I can not walk. The side effects of them are scary beyond words. Actually my arthiritis has become less invasive as time as gone on and only occasionally becomes very painful for which I have to take pain pills. Vitamins I have never been able to take without horrible side effects until I found out about One A Day Essentials. I can take them 3 days then lay off 2 days and then take them 3 days etc etc and do fine with them. I also have found that the arthiritis seems to change when my medication is lowered or upped-------seems a bit strange to me! I am a little suspicious of vancocin.

[beth22]

I also am leary about vancocin. I had more problems with that medication while on it, than when I was off. I feel that it damaged my small intestine more than the c diff did and the result is now all the food intolerances because of the malabsorption problems. Each time I had to start taking the medication for a relapse the side effects got worse. Am now on Xifaxan - 3rd day - and that is a hard medication to take too. Hope it does what it is supposed to. I still don't understand how reactive arthritis differs from other arthritis conditions. The only thing I could see from reading about it, is that in many cases it goes away eventually.

[cindym]

Beth- Supposedly when your gut returns to normal and the flora is in control of itself once again the reactive arthiritis can go totally away just the same way it came--SUDDENLY. I am living for that day.

[beth22]

Yes, I hope that day comes soon. I know that with small intestine bacterial overgrowth you can get bad fibromyalgia and it supposedly goes away when the bad bacteria is gone. I am treating with Xifaxan for that now - wouldn't surprise me if the bacterial overgrowth that I have in there is not c diff. again, it sure feels like it. The doctor said it was possible, but no way to measure which bacteria from a breath test and kept testing negative for c diff toxin in spite of symptoms - so who knows. Thanks for the info.