Posted 9/2/2009 8:03 PM (GMT 0)
Oh, you poor thing. I completely understand how you feel. My husband suffered with c-diff for too long last year - basically from March to December, and he had a bad crohn's flare up at the same time as well. We had a perfectly horrid time dealing with it. But he did beat it - he beat the crohn's with remicade and prednisone, and c-diff with lots of vancomycin, vsl#3, florastor, and lots of SCD yogurt.
My husband was diagnosed with c-diff in the first week of March last year, and thereafter in April he was diagnosed with Crohn's. He was so immunosuppressed with prednisone and remicade, that his c-diff came back when he was still even taking vancomycin! So, they knew they needed to lower his steroids before they could try to wean him off the vancomycin. When he was down to 10 mgs of vancomycin in Sep last year, they stopped the vancomycin, and within 10 days, it came back, so back on the vancomycin he went. The next time they stopped the vancomycin, my husband was completely off the steroids, and this time, it didn't come back. It has stayed that way since - so he's been c-diff free without vancomycin since Jan 1st.
The plan if it came back again after stopping the vancomycin, was to pulse taper the vancomycin. The infectious disease doctor told us that that was the protocol. You try to stop the vancomycin cold turkey twice, and if it comes back again, the next time you try to stop it, you pulse taper -eg. 6 days on vacomycin, one off for a week; 5 days on vanc, 2 off for a week, etc, until you get to taking no vancomycin. The idea is to let the spores become bacteria that vancomycin can kill, that way getting rid of the spores slowly.
Also, I believe for my husband, florastor, vsl#3, SCD yogurt, and avoiding all sugars, and going very light on the carbs, also helped defeat c-diff. Good luck, I hope our experience helps you.
PV