Colonoscopy-After C-Section

[Motherof2]

I just had a colonoscopy done. It was so painful that they had to stop and go back in after I was under general anesthesia.

The reason the colonoscopy was so painful the first time is I have a redundant colon.
The redundant colon is a "twisted" colon and it is believed to be caused by a number of things.
One of which is a c-section when they are moving fast to get the baby out...they don't think of anything else.
I had an emergency c-section with my youngest child.
When I was in the hospital, I had a bowel obstruction...it turns out the obstruction was the bowel itself.
The "ribbon stool" that I experienced was the form it had to take to get past the bend.
The pain I felt was because my colon was bent and it was excruciating...I couldn't walk...I was laying in that hospital bed in so much pain.
I think the contrast that I had to drink before the abdominal CT actually flooded my colon and forced the bend to straighten out.
The dilated bowel loops that they saw in my CT were probably a result of the trauma to my colon and the contrast "flooding it out".
I was okay for a few months because the colon had straightened out. I never quite recovered from the hospital experience.
I had so many breast infections and ear infections and even my fingernails were getting infected.
I kept taking the antibiotics the doctors were giving me for the breast and ear infections...not knowing what it was doing to my body.
With my last antibiotic that I took for a severe ear infection, I got c-diff.
Whether I picked up a spore in the hospital or not I will never know...but it didn't show itself until April of 2008.
I have had 8 recurrences that have been diagnosed with stool cultures.
The Vancomycin treatment works to get rid of the symptoms for a short time but they always come back...

After this colonoscopy...I have a theory.

The way vancomycin works is it sits in the intestine. The medicine is not absorbed into the body.
There is a chance that the vanco is getting to my colon and killing the bacteria.
But these "smart spores" have figured it out.
They go through the twist in the "redundant colon" and hide toward the end point where there is minimal vancomycin (because it doesn't know to go past the "bend").
When the treatment stops...they come out to play and I am sick all over again.

I believe that even if I had contracted c-diff...I would not have trouble getting rid of it if it had not been for my redundant colon.

The major side effect of redundant colon is constipation.
I have never had any trouble in that department until post c-section.
I actually had IBS as a teenager...going 15-19 times a day.
This is the reason I believe I had a normal colon until my delivery day.
I am truly thankful to my doctor for keeping my baby healthy and I know that things go wrong all the time.
But, no matter how I feel emotionally, I have to fix what is wrong with me because I am not living a full life.

I don't know what the doctor's next step is but I need to get better...

If anyone else has had a similar situaton...I would love to hear your story. Maybe we can come up with some ideas to present to our doctors??

[Motherof2]

I have had c-diff 8 times in ten months

[Nancy1]

You are the first person besides me on this site who has mentioned having a redundant colon. I had a colonoscopy in 1999 and was never told that I had a redundant colon then. I didn't find this out until I got cdiff in 2005 and asked for all of my medical records. They told me this meant that my colon was telescoping in on itself. No one gave me any reason for having a redundant colon, and I haven't had any C-sections. Interestingly, my colonoscopy was not very painful.

Your theory makes sense to me. It always seemed to me that cdiff could "hide" more easily in a redundant colon. I had cdiff for 8 months and finally beat it with pulsing.