My husband's original diagnosis was ulcerative proctitis. In March 2008, we thought he had another flare up of proctitis. It turned out that he had c-diff. They put him on vancomycin, but he continued to get worse. He was admitted to the hospital. My husband got c-diff with no prior antibiotics or hospitalization.
At the hospital, because they thought he only had proctitis, they didn't do a full colonoscopy, only a flex sig, where they saw some minimal inflammation in rectum. So they gave him some steroid suppositories. He contined to get worse. They finally did a full colonoscopy and found terrible crohns damage in the transverse colon (hamburger meat the doc said).
They immediately put him on 120mgs of IV solumedrol, and added flagyl to his regimen, in addition to vancomycin. It didn't help. He was being followed by a surgeon to resect his colon. The GI said our last option was to try remicade, but they left the choice to us because the doctors he consulted with couldn't come to a consensus of whether remicade would help or hurt.
We decided to try the remicade, since our only other choice was surgery. 2 days after the first leading dose, hubby said he felt better. Two weeks later, he had the second leading dose, and he was doing good, actually started forming stool, but 2 days after that he had trouble again. They tested his stool and it was positive for c-diff. This while he was taking oral vancomycin (they'd stopped oral flagyl). So they upped his dose of vancomycin and added flagyl as well.
He started doing better. They sent him home on 80mgs of prednisone and vancomycin every 6 hours. He could not stop taking the vancomycin for almost a year. Every time he stopped, the c-diff would return. This is because he was on steroids, and he got regular remicade infusions. When he finally got off the steroids almost a year later, he could finally stop the vancomycin. Even on 10mgs of pred, the c-diff recurred.
It was a hellish year. I'm convinced that my husband had a crohns flare up which lead to a bacterial imbalance in his gut that allowed c-diff to take hold. Of course, that's just my theory. I also believe what finally helped my husband break free from the c-diff infection is saccromyces boulardii, a yeast that has been shown to fight c-diff. It is sold by the name of florastor. My husband takes 4 caps daily, and has been c-diff free since then.
I can't tell you whether or not to take remicade when your son has a c-diff infection. I can only tell you that my husband did, since he was out of other options. Remicade saved him from surgery. I honestly believe his c-diff kept coming back because of the prednisone, not because of remicade. When he finally got off pred, he could stop the vanc. I can also tell you that you should try florastor to help quell the c-diff infection, and to prevent relapse.
I hope your son gets better soon.
PV
Post Edited (PV) : 4/14/2013 11:22:03 AM (GMT-6)