Question for the regulars

[cindym]

Roy, I have not read anything to confirm that time frame but it makes sense to allow the vanco or flagyl to be completely out of your system prior to testing. With most antibiotics they are effective for 10 to 14 days in your body. However, it has never made a difference with me. I have tested positive in the past while on vanco and also have tested negative while not on vanco when in fact cdiff was raging. This bug is very different in each individual and all the facts are IFFY to say the least.

[Bobbie]

Roy,
Good question. Can't remember where that info. came from. Will Email "the powers that be" & ask.

[cindym]

Roy, After all my dealings with cdiff and having the worst form of it.....I never recommend anyone waiting if they are symptomatic. In my case if I waited I would not be living now. I think it is a judgement call for any individual on the way they feel and how bad their symptoms are. It seems all people vary in the degree of symptoms.

[fire7163]

As I said before. The last time I relapsed the covering GI was sure that that it wasn't a relapse as my symptons weren't classic. I made a $100.00 bet with him that I was positive. He wasn't happy when all of the tests came in positive. The bottom line here, is that you know your body and need to listen to what it's telling you. As for the Doctors, they work for you, and if you're not happy with them, tell them in no uncertain terms and if need be fire them. I promise you that will get their attention. Any doctor who won't lsiten to his patient is at best dangerous and it goes downhill from there.

Fire

[klt03301]

My GI told me months ago I could have a raging C Diff infection and still test negative. I don't know about the waiting period; just something I read here. Out of all the tests I've had (maybe 10 or more), I only tested positive once and I knew I had C Diff the day before when my stool was tested and came back negative. The next day it was positive. They need to develop better testing methods and handle the stool samples properly, which many labs are lax about.

Karen

[cindym]

Fire- You and I may be related--------same theories! ha!

[trob25]

I had three different doctors test me for C-Diff, two are excellent, one was a moron, and none of them ever indicated that you had to wait 10-14 days after meds to retest. After my first round of Flagyl, I was still in horrible shape, was retested four days after going off meds and it came back positive on all three samples! (All my docs gave me tests that require three samples on three different days, this I'm told, is how the standard C-Diff test is actually supposed to work).

So I'm not sure how accurate that 10-14 day thing is. I think there are just a lot of bad labs out there, not properly handling samples or with weak testing practices. When I had C-Diff and knew it, my labs always found it, no matter if I was on meds or not. When I was having what turned out to be PI-IBS episodes I was always negative.