What is C.dif?
During November of last year my husband became seriously ill and was in the hospital for almost three months. During that time they had to put in a pacemaker, found an infected toes and tried to find out what else was wrong with him. He missed all the holiday at home and for a while we were afraid he was not going to even make it and a lot of this had to do with a bacteria called C.dif that live inside us all.
While he was in the hospital recovering, he developed a bad case of diarrhea and the hospital couldn’t seem to get it under control. First he had cramps and they thought maybe he had gotten some kind of flu, but soon it was evident that he was dehydrated, running a fever, and could not keep food on his stomach. When he got blood in his bowel movements the hospital took notice. They finally ran some test and discover he had contracted something was known as C. dif. Although the proper name for it is clostridium difficile colitis and is also know as antibiotic-associated colitis.
When the doctor told me he had C.dif I had no idea what it was and so I asked a lot of questions and did a bit of research. One of the nurses told me that when C.dif is discovered in a patient, the whole hospital panics, because it is as hard to control as a staff infection if it gets out on the hospital floor and will spread like wild fire among other sick patients.. He was immediately put in isolation and everyone that came or went including me, had to wear a hospital gown for protection.
I found out that both healthy and sick people’s have this bacteria in their intestines, and when it is in small numbers there is no problem. However, if it gets out of control in the colon or intestines, it is a very nasty bacteria to have.
He had been given an antibiotic for an infection in his toe when he was admitted to the hospital. He has diabetes, so they didn’t want it to get any worse. They carefully were treating him for that infection as well as the heart attack he had before entering the hospital.
Now when you take an antibiotic, it may help the normal person but sometimes if you are not in very good shape or elderly, the good bacteria in your system will get harmed. When that happens it is possible for the bad bacteria to take over and C.dif is one of those bad fellows. If this happens your body begins to produce toxins that attack the walls of your intestines and may even cause them to get ulcerated. If not discovered and treated right away, it can get out of hand and patients have been know to die from it. My husband almost did, before they ran tests to see what was causing his diarrhea. Fortunate they did discover the problem but it took weeks for them to get it under control.
They have a choice of two powerful antibiotics to help cure this disease. One is a cheaper drug, called Flagyl but this one did not solve his problem. So they had to go to the really expensive one, called Vancocin. This finally did the job, fortunately, or he would have died. There is no other known resources for stopping this terrible disease at this time.
The worst part is that even if you kill off this bacteria it produces spores that can live in your body for extended periods of time. If you go on another antibiotic , these spores can figure it out and then you are attack again with this C.dif bateria. So you can get rid of it but it may come back again to haunt you the rest of your life. There are those that claim that active culture yogurt may help you to get over it, but this is not proven. However when you get in this shape most folks will try most any thing to keep from going through this again.
My husband is 80 years old and has not had an attack since he got out of the hospital. However, we remain vigilant that it could occur again at any time.
If you have had a bout with this C.dif, Please be aware of the possibilities and get help as soon as possible, if you need it. This is nothing to play with.
