Here we go again . . .

As you folks know, my husband just recently suffered a c-diff relapse. Well, he just finished his 2 week course of vancomycin (9/16 was his last vanc day), and we are keeping our fingers crossed, and until this morning things seemed to be improving. He had to wake up at 4:30 am, because he had gas, and had to go poop, and then, still felt unsettled, and had to go poop again. And then he got the feeling that he needed to poop a few times . . . but he waited a few, and the feeling passed. I think the feeling to defecate like that is called tenesmus. I know he had that feeling when he was first diagnosed with ulcerative proctitis.

His stool is still formed, and on the bristol stool scale is was about 4.5 or so. So, what I am wondering now is if c-diff can cause tenesmus, or if this is crohn's rearing it's ugly head. We are definitely going to get his stool tested for c-diff again. However, these are symptoms that we generally associate with proctitis - so I am wondering if c-diff can manifest thusly - with more proctitis symptoms than diarrhea and bloating and smelly poops.

I know, it's probably very hard to distinguish between c-diff and crohn's via symptoms alone. I guess the stool test will give us answers. In the meantime though, I'm just bummed out you know . . . we had to cancel vacation plans to go visit my niece for her 7th birthday, and cancel our non-refundable plane tickets, etc. I hope we can get past this again like we did last year. I guess I could use some encouragement . . . it's hard to get up at 4:30 in the morning, and be so worried about something you can't control, and unable to sleep with a lot of thoughts racing through your head.

Oh, do you think we should do a colonoscopy even if the c-diff test is positive? His doctors feel that his crohn's is well treated, so it is unlikely to be a crohn's flare, and therefore, when the c-diff test came back positive, they decided that a colonoscopy wasn't warranted. It was their reticence to do a colonoscopy that really hurt my husband last year in the hospital - they did 2 sig scopes and found nothing, because all his inflammation was in the transverse colon, so his crohn's went untreated for a long time.

But now his crohn's is being treated, and his symptoms aren't bad, and he has c-diff. Should I just leave the topic of colonoscopy well alone, or do you think it warrants one?

PV

Thanks for the reply. He just came in and told me he had to poop again, still formed, but kinda heading towards loser. Last night, for dinner, I made some mixed vegetables (that has carrots, beans, and corn). He said that the corn was in his poop undigested. He's never had problems digesting corn . . . but I've never given him corn so close after stopping antibiotics for c-diff. Last time, he only started eating veggies really like 6 months after being released from the hospital. But he'd been doing so good, I thought to add a little more variety to his diet. I felt so bad, that all he was eating was chicken and rice or pasta . . .

Maybe I just in my good intentions I irritated his colon, and that's what this has been about . . .I've heard, and his doc has told me that sometimes people develop post-infectious IBS after a bout with c-diff, but that it typically takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months or more for the colon to return to normal. Maybe that's what is going on here . . . I sure hope so.

Since we're worried about the c-diff, I went ahead and called his doc to schedule a stool sample test for the c-diff. We'll try to get that done today, so we can have results tomorrow. If it isn't c-diff, we'll just chalk it down to IBS and return to the bland boring diet and see how he does.

I have no experience with IBS - can IBS wake you up from sleep to have to go poop, and cause tenesmus?

I'll keep you posted on his progress and how his stool test works out.

PV

Well PV the last time I ate corn I had about 3-4 days of really bad pain, cramps and frequent bathroom visits. Most of us cannot tolerate corn and it is extremely difficult to digest. In fact, most times passes thru whole like it wasn't even chewed. I still say give him a few more days to get this all worked thru his system. And avoid corn and popcorn type foods in the future as they are extremely irritating to our systems. Good luck!