c diff and parasite infections

I have seen lots of mention of c diff on this board and I wonder.  Is it a common problem among people with IBD to get it or is it just a common test performed on people with IBD so it gets discussed a lot.   

Because I have been seeing the same GI for nearly three years and he has never tested me for anything like parasites or infections.  Now, since my intestinal symptoms have changed recently (for the worst), he all of the sudden thinks of c diff or parasites? 

Seems like his first reaction would be that my UC symptoms have changed and not that perhaps, it could be, I have a spore or even a bug up my butt. I am sorry for my crudeness, but not enough to edit it out I guess :) 

But the bottom line is that I went to doc today hoping for quick miraculous relief.  I didn't even realize I had set my hopes so high until I left the office and realized I was utterly disappointed.  I guess I really wanted to be better before I leave Friday for a beach vacation.  To his credit he did give me a new prescription for rowasa which I have never tried before.

Boy I really must be tired...

Yes, Edie, it was totally gross giving the samples.  Your explanation makes sense.  Have you ever tested positive for anything?

Yea, giving samples is totally gross. My GI doc only tested me for c-diff 2 times-after antibiotics for ear/sinus infections. Tests came up positive both times. He told me to have my primary Dr double check any antibiotics she gives me b/c some can cause me to get c-diff.

It was an actual c diff infection that led to my finding out that I had UC. I was told that c diff was usually found in older people, who had been in hospital settings, on antibiotics, or people who had been out of the country. We never figured out how I got the infection because at the time I did not fit into any of those catgories. My new GI doc told me that c diff is becoming more prevalent, so I think that is why people might be getting tested more often.

Ok, since I was diagnosed with klebsiella bacteria in my urinary tract, that would not get inside my intestines and cause this c-diff or giardia would it? I have not been out of the country, I have not been in a hospital at all, just my gynecologist office for certain issues. I drink water here at work out of the tap on ice and drink water at home and in restaurants. Memphis has the best water and it is well filtered.

The only other place we go is my mother-in-law's house every other weekend and it is filthy. She has a septic tank system and it constantly gets backed up into her kitchen sink and stinks like raw sewage of course. But I rarely drink any water down there ever. We won't even drink anything out of her refrigerator down there. And there is cat feces inside her house everywhere upstairs. I hope we are not picking things up down there. I don't even like sitting on her toilet down there as many times there are flies on it. The last time we were down I would not sit on her toilet, I squatted above it. We won't even eat her cooking at all. We get something out.

My husband never has picked up anything down there. And I wash my hands all the time with soap and water, antibacterial to be exact. I need to quit reading things, this just keeps me nervous as I have been diagnosed and treated for dehydration over the past couple of days, probably due to all the urine I have been passing trying to keep my kidneys clear of infection, and didn't drink enough water to replace it.

I hope she does not have this c-diff and has given it to me. And have been on an antibiotic for the urinary tract infection. My stools have been totally normal until the past couple of days, have been looser but due to the dehydration I have been on more of a liquid diet of jello, popsicles, ice pops, gatorade, water, etc, but no diarrhea or cramping. I've got to quit thinking I've got everything I read about.

 

Hey, at wit's end:

I got c-diff from taking Cipro for a bladder infection that turned out to not really be a bladder infection. I took it for three days on a preliminary result that my urine tested positive in a quick initial test on a Friday, but stopped taking the Cipro on Monday when the longer test result showed no infection. about six weeks later, I was so sick with colitis. I went for a flexible sig to see what was going on, and in the meantime, I'd done some Internet investigation on what might be causing these symptoms (I had not yet been diagnosed with UC, just proctitis), and discovered information about c-diff.

Upon performing the flex sig, my doc pointed to the picture of UC on the chart in the scope room and pronounced that I had a pretty bad case of UC. I insisted he test for c-diff; he was reluctant, saying it was a disease of older folks and/or nursing homes and hospitals. I got started on some pred for the UC diagnosis and I left on a trip. Two days into my trip, I got a phone call while in Arizona that indeed the c-diff test came back positive, so I was started on Flagyl.

One thing about the c-diff test: You can get false negatives quite easily, but you will not get a false positive.

Since that time, I have been diagnosed with UC. It's kind of a chicken/egg thing as far as the c-diff and my UC.
I am unsure if I had asymptomatic UC and that caused me to be more susceptible to getting c-diff, or if my c-diff caused my previously asymptomatic UC to become symptomatic, but since that time I've had to treat daily for UC.

C-diff is called antibiotic-associated colitis, so its symptoms will mimic those of UC. For some folks, getting rid of c-diff is as easy as stopping their antibiotics. Those are the lucky few. Their good bacteria take care of business and get things back in order. For others, a course of Flagyl eradicates the nasty bugs. For some, myself included, I had to get out the big guns (vancomycin) to get rid of it, after a couple of courses of Flagyl failed to do the trick.

Of course you can become dehydrated with any kind of colitis, including c-diff. The role of your large intestine is to absorb water out of the waste that has gone through your stomach and your small intestine, so when your colon walls are ulcerated and are unable to perform this function, you have watery (and bloody, with c-diff) diarrhea, that water being what your body would have normally absorbed to keep you hydrated had your gut not been ill. I know the times I've had really bad flares, once with c-diff and once with a UC flare, I was really dehydrated. Being really dehydrated makes you feel just awful, with no energy. I ended up in the emergency room with my first bad flare of UC, and they put in three bags of fluid. I felt like a new person!!! The next day was my colonoscopy, and I couldn't keep my head up. Overnight, I had again become so dehydrated that I could hardly function. Didn't help that I had to prep the night before, either. Talk about insult on top of injury! Having to prep for a colonoscopy on top of an ugly flare was the worst.

Anyway, I hope I haven't gone on too long with this little primer on c-diff. It has, as others have said, become much more prevalent, and in fact, since I had my c-diff infection about eight to ten years ago or so, I've had a nephew get c-diff and an aunt get c-diff. My nephew got it from Clindamyocin, and my aunt got it from Augmentin. Both had quite a time getting rid of it.

Good luck, and hope you're feeling better soon.

Great news, at wit's end, that you don't have c-diff. And I'm glad you're also feeling better!

Mitz