Video Glossary: What is C. diff.?
August 1, 2010
QUESTION: HAS ANYBODY HAD EXPERIENCE WITH C. DIFFICILE (C. DIFF.)?? SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE!!
The United Colon Vlog
Support for those with inflammatory bowel diseases.
Welcome!
IBD Bracelets
Join Us!
I had a C. Diff infection as a complication of ulcerative colitis. For me, the infection was completely unrelated to antibiotic use (I had not used antibiotics for over 2 years prior to the infection). Rather, I was in the midst of a severe UC flareup and at some point the trauma in my colon made me susceptible to naturally-occuring C.Diff (or else I somehow contracted it in the community).
Before my doctors knew that I had the C.Diff infection, we couldn’t figure out why my UC drugs apparently weren’t working. It turns out that at some point, most of symptoms were due to the C.Diff. Once we finally discovered the infection, I took two courses of Vancomycin over 3 months to completely get rid of the infection (I relapsed after the first course). Fortunately, most of my symptoms subsided within one week of starting the Vancoymycin, so I did get pretty quick relief once the problem had been identified.
For anyone else out there reading this, if you are ever given a course of treatment for C.Diff, it is VITALLY important that you completely finish the antibiotic and that you take it exactly per your doctor’s instructions. Like many other harmful bacteria today, C.Diff unfortunately is becoming drug resistant. The only way to slow down this sad phenomenon is to take your antibiotic exactly as your doctor instructs. Otherwise, those of us with a susceptibility to this bug could find ourselves with severe complications one day when antibiotics no longer work against it.