Haley
It all began after I gave birth to my child (Cesarean section in 2019) when my body went downhill. A time that is meant to be joyous was filled with dread. I had an unknown movement in my lower abdomen that felt like a baby was still trapped in me with random bouts of diarrhea (1 diarrhea bowel movement a month) that weren’t bad at all. So I never thought anything about it.
I caught a sickness in the winter and was put on antibiotics. A month later I had a day of diarrhea (1 bowel movement). The next month I had unexplained body aches. At this time, my doctor was testing me for everything but nothing came back with any indication I was sick. She even wanted to test me for C. diff, but I had no diarrhea to collect because any time I had a bout of diarrhea (1 diarrhea bowel movement per month) I was out doing errands.
At the height of my symptoms, I had a pinching feeling all over my body with aching joints, dizziness, nausea, anxiety, headaches, extreme weight loss, and a burning stomach. So one day, I took things into my own hands and went to a digestive urgent care. There they had a swab test so they took a sample by swabbing my bum. Bam: I was positive for C. diff. As soon as I was treated for C. diff everything changed for me.
I was lucky and only needed one dose of vancomycin. Unfortunately, I was put on two doses of antibiotics for a UTI a year later. Now I am struggling with C. diff again. It was so hard to test because I do not have severe diarrhea! I am tired of going into the doctors and always being told you would know if you had C. diff. Well, I didn’t, and I am not a textbook form of C. diff. The biggest symptoms that I dealt with every day were body pains and muscle spasms, not severe stinking diarrhea. I literally have one diarrhea bowel movement a month.
Other Stories
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Mira
In December of 2019, my husband got sick with C. diff. It was after he was prescribed antibiotics for what they thought was a case of diverticulitis. In hindsight, it’s clear he may have simply had c-diff all along. He was treated with vancomycin … -
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Jan
I am a healthy active older woman. On March 1, 2019 I had an explosive episode of diarrhea, out of the blue, no idea what caused it. The smell was indescribable, like nothing I had ever experienced in my long life. That was the beginning of a long… -
Dr. Melissa Geraghty, Psy.D.
At the start of 2018 I was diagnosed with C. diff. I never really heard much about C. diff outside of people acquiring it in a hospital setting or people of advanced age contracting it. Oh, was I wrong. After being sick for about 8 weeks with w… -
Cassie Padilla
As a nurse for 35 years I thought I knew a lot about C. diff but as a patient I’ve discovered I knew NOTHING about C. diff. I have had 2 episodes of C. diff in my life. The first was in 2017 following (prophylactic) antibiotics after surgery. That… -
Julia
I’ve been suffering from this infection for the past few years. When I was first diagnosed, I was shocked and thought this was something that only the elderly suffered from. It’s been 3 years since my first infection, and I still suffer daily. I’v… -
Sue
I had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix and was given SO MANY antibiotics in the hospital. I was also given Protonix for the acid reflux that resulted from all the antibiotics. Looking at the list of risk factors for C. diff, I fit every o… -
Howard
While many of us who battle C diff have quick success with the usual antibiotics, the purpose of my entry here is to emphasize the high rate of success of the Fecal Microbiota Transplant. My C diff experience was such that A) a lengthy course of V…
