So a few Saturday mornings ago I woke up with stomach cramps and fatigue. My husband joked with me, suggesting maybe I shouldn’t have had the two glasses of wine the previous night. I went about my day, the pain waxing and waning. Then Sunday, an atrocious pain woke me up at 5am. It continued to worsen, so we went to the hospital. They couldn’t find anything wrong except the pain, so I INSISTED they do a C Diff test (btw the ER doc said ‘I don’t think it’s that, your white blood count is fine and you have no fever, but I can do it if you want me to….’) They admitted me, and 24 hours later the test results showed positive for C Diff. I was put on IV Flagyl, oral vacomycin, saccharomyces boulardii and lactobacillus (the last two are probiotics). The pain lessened, so I was released on Friday. I’m still fatigued and kind of crampy.
My concern is that this is the third time I’ve had this blasted bug, so why isn’t the treatment different? My GI suggested a new antibiotic called Dificid, but the hospital doctors refused to put me on it due to cost. I guess it’s pretty expensive. The infectious disease doc suggested doing the vaco taper a little differently – one week on, one week off for a month. Also, he suggested fecal transplant, which I am all for, but no doctors in Northeastern Ohio do them. I've been reaching out to doctors in RI and NY, but so far, no luck.
My other concern is that I am going to be more susceptible to having chronic pouchitis (an infection of the jpouch - symptoms resemble Ulcerative Colitis) because of recurrent c diff when I finally get the reversal done. Up to now, I’ve been assuming that this surgical option is curative, but I do have to be prepared if the pouch fails to have a permanent ileostomy. Not sure how I feel about that.
Because of this recurrent infection, my surgery has been postponed to December 20th. Super, right before Christmas. The up side is I won't have to cook and no one will expect me to do anything or go anywhere. The holidays will be ALOT less stressful this year!
So, for now, I'm laying low and hoping that damned C Diff stays away!!!!
