My daughter began with a sore tummy at the end of October and I believed it was constipation. After giving her some laxative, hot water bottle and waiting a few days the tummy pain didn’t improve but just kept getting worse. GP diagnosed her with constipation 3 days later and ordered urine test and x-ray. Pain continued to get worse and after over a week we had to attend the ED due to severe pain. They repeated urine test and did an ultrasound and nothing was found. We attended the ED two more times over the next week due to her pain. Finally her GP sent her for an in depth abdominal x-ray and stool test. The x-ray results came back as mesenteric adenitis. My daughter was also started on Cephalexin in the meantime as her white blood cells were raised in her urine. After almost a week on this we received a call to immediately stop the antibiotics and change to Flagyl due to C. diff. I was initially optimistic when her GP told me what my daughter had because we finally knew what it was. That’s until I opened Google and scared the living daylights out of myself. I rang around and found a Gastroenterologist who advised to immediately stop Flagyl and get on Vancomycin. This GI also advised that an FMT was going to be the best way to get rid of this nasty infection. So after my daughter’s Vanco, we did 3 at home enema FMTs using donor stool supplied by the GI.

By this time we were in early December and approx. 12 days after the FMTs, my daughter starts having bloody, mucousy stools. We re-tested for C. diff and her stool test came back positive. Weird because my daughter at this point was feeling well. The GI advised to retreat so we did. Another 10 days of Vanco and this time 6 at home enema FMTs. We only got through 4 of the FMTs until my daughter was in severe pain. She was then admitted to The Royal Children’s hospital for two days. After another whole batch of testing she has come back still positive for C. diff, but the pain was due to the FMTs and not the C. diff. The pain died off after a few days. We are currently at the end of January and 3 weeks out from the FMTs and my daughter has no symptoms, is eating and feeling very well. Her stools are formed but they always were, she never had the explosive diarrhea. Her journey is still not over. She has retested and we are awaiting test results. If they come back positive I don’t know if I will retreat – maybe she just needs more time.

The mental load of this has been awful. On her and our whole family. I am constantly bleaching her bathroom/toilet, high touch surfaces within the house and have overhauled our families diet but especially my daughters. She takes prebiotic powder, probiotics with s.boulaardi within, has daily fruit smoothies loaded with Kefir, multivitamins and I pack heaps of vegetables into her day. She is still not totally in the clear but I feel she is on her way. I’ll worry about future antibiotics if/when she needs them but that’s my next item to plan.

We believe she caught this from an older family friend who has it (didn’t know until after my daughter came down with it) who uses facilities that my daughter uses. I don’t know why my daughter’s microbiome was compromised which allowed this to get a foothold. I wouldn’t wish this horrible disease on anyone.

Update:Belle has now tested negative (and we’re hoping it stays that way) but has been left with IBS symptoms which we are managing through diet. We’re hoping they go away with time.