My Story - 33/m - Previously active & healthy

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CountryEMT
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Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:07 am

My Story - 33/m - Previously active & healthy

Postby CountryEMT » Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:14 am

Hello everyone:

This forum has been an answered prayer for me, and so I feel like I should join and contribute. Having worked in and around healthcare, all I have ever heard is “C. Diff is bad, mmkay? Don’t get it”. That was the only education I ever got, and I am doing my part to make sure that changes. Here is my story.

I was a normal, healthy 33-year-old male who had always been predictably ill (1-2 episodes of cold/flu/ick every winter, and that’s it!) and rarely visited a doctor except for medication management for an unrelated mental illness.

This past spring, despite having my annual flu shot, I ended up with the flu. It happens, life goes on. I missed work due to being sick, and went to the doctor for an exam and a work note. During the exam, he found a sinus infection and prescribed 7 days of Augmentin, which is a first-line for such infections in this local health system’s protocol. The doc advised me that some amount of D was normal with any antibiotic, but to call him if it got to be severe or lasted very long past the end of the antibiotic.

The D started about 3 days in, with B and M. I finished the Augmentin and waited for the D to quit. It never did. I called the doc and went in for an exam. He suspected C. Diff and sent me for a blood panel and STAT stool test (Toxin A/B and PCR). Later that day, I was told “Good News!” (now my least favorite phrase in the whole world), the test was negative for C. Diff. I was told to take Imodium and push fluids.

Two weeks later, the D had not stopped and had been joined by horrible abdominal pain which alternated between the feeling of being punched in the gut and not having eaten for about 3 days. The doc ordered another round of blood work and a stool panel to include a culture. The culture was positive and I started on Flagyl x 14 days. Flagyl is the most atrocious medication I have ever taken. I had to learn a new way to swallow pills to avoid throwing them up.

Since stopping the Flagyl, the D has quit, but abdominal pain, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting persist. Negative stool culture and absence of D says no more C. Diff, but no known explanation for the continuing symptoms. I cannot work more than a couple days a week, but I have a wonderful boss and a (dwindling) abundance of leave which I am thankful for. Blood work and abdominal CT show nothing remarkable, so I am off to a GI doc to see what’s next.

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