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.