Help! Kaiser prescribed me 7 days of Vanco. Do I need more?

[Cdifrecovering]

Hi,

I developed C diff after taking Cipro :(. I have been on Vancomycin for 6 days and I thought it was getting a little better yesterday (day 5) but today it felt like it was back and smell was there. Taking 3-4 Saccharomyces Boulardii, 2-3 charcoal and 1 Bio K+ along with Vanco 4x per day.

Kaiser only gave me 7 days of Vanco, should I push them to get more? How long is standard dosage of Vanco?

Thank you!

Jeff

[georgina]

Hi Jeff
Welcome to the site , sorry you are dealing with CDiff , be sure to read the first forum.
It's a very good thing that your doctor put you on vanco , many doctors try metronidazole first.Vanco has a high cure rate and may do the trick for you although 7 days are not enough , the treatment must be taken 10 to 14 days.You can have abnormal stool even while on vanco as well as in early recovery and even the smell can linger for awhile.As long as you are not having D ,or high frequency you are fine.Be careful about taking charcoal, when you take activated charcoal, toxins and drugs can bind to it.So if you use it along with vanco it can bind the vanco and make it ineffective.And also , you take a little too much saccharomyces (in my opinion) I wouldn't take that much , as it can give you some of the GI symptoms.
Hope you feel better soon!

[Lisa33]

Hi Jeff - Sorry you are dealing with this nasty illness. I agree with everything Georgina said. The Vanco treatment should be longer than 7 days. I would actually push for 14 days. I also think that you may be taking too many probiotics, which can also be adding to your symptoms. I would maybe go down to 2 sacch. boulardii and see if it helps the symptoms any. The smell did stick around for a while after going off vanco for me too. My GI said not to worry about smell or color, unless it was red or black. BM's can be all over the place for quite some time after finishing meds too. The rule of thumb is that as long as you aren't having frequent watery D more than 3 times per day for 3 days in a row, then it's most likely normal recovery.

Feel better,
Lisa