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C. difficile – Are your guts ever normal again?
Digestive Health | Last Active: Jul 15 5:56pm | Replies (646)Comment receiving replies
I'm very sorry to hear your are having a difficult recovery. I pray for your speedy healing.
I don't believe your Gut ever goes back to normal sfter Cdiff. As my Family Dr put it-I think you have a different/new normal now.
Yes. I have had several reoccurrences since I was released from the hospital. I took 3 Rounds of FMT Pills by mouth which were supposed to Re-Colonize my Colon. They failed. My Infectious Disease Dr finally , on 1-30-2023, sent me to the Hospital where a Gastroenterologist performed a FMT (Fecal Matter Transplant) via the Colonoscopy type route. So far so good. So this is why I am so cautious about Antibiotics.
Since you haven't had a reoccurence in several years, you could possibly be out of the woods in regards to taking Antibiotics . But if I were you I would still run it by your surgeon's follow-up staff to get some input from Mayo infectious disease experts, as you said.
I am in Alabama so I'm sorry I wouldn't be able to recommend a Gastro Dr.
Take good care.
Replies to "I'm very sorry to hear your are having a difficult recovery. I pray for your speedy..."
Well I found some info to my own question.
..."Once you have a C. diff infection, you may continue to have some detectable level of C. diff bacteria that live within the gut, which may never completely go away"
Here is link to article.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-to-prevent-c-diff-from-recurring-5219499#:~:text=Recurrence%20of%20infection%E2%80%94or%20reinfection%E2%80%94is%20common%20with%20C.%20diff,10%25%20and%2020%25%20of%20all%20C.%20diff%20infections.
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Thank you again for your replies.
I sympathize with your situation. That is most difficult. I have read about such cases and have been terrorized.
I only had a HUGE DIARRHEA, went to the hospital 3 days later and spent a week in a private room overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. I thought "And Medicare pays for this? They did and I have very good Medigap insurance also.
I know about fecal transplant. One needs a close relative???
I am wondering if I had a different strain of C-diff.-perhaps weaker than today - so the ten days of Vancomycin did the trick, and I had no reoccurrences.
They now talk about how certain infections are more resistant to antibiotics because Doctors prescribed them unnecessarily. (How many people got it from Dentist prescription of antibiotics!!!!- My dentist sent me flowers after).
But I have googled and googled and not found any reporting on probability of having a C-diff outbreak when taking an antibiotic many years after the last outbreak. One would think someone is collecting such data. A life without antibiotics could be a problem. Of course, I am now almost 12 years older and have lung cancer which means my immune system is also weaker. So now my risk is greater.