My story begins in the summer of 2017. I remember being in my living room and not feeling right, so I went outside for some fresh air. Then I felt a weird sensation in my left arm and I panicked. I told my wife to get me to the ER. At the ER, they ran tests and said my heart was fine but it seemed I had a lot of noise in my intestines. They gave me a bunch of antacids/antireflux meds and sent me home. The next day when I woke up, BAM! Everything was blurry. I thought maybe I was getting a migraine (I have ocular migraines). But as the hours passed, my vision never cleared up. I also noticed I couldn’t concentrate either and I had diarrhea twice a day.

At my first visit to the doctor’s office, they thought I had a bug and so they gave me Bactrim. These symptoms continued on for 4 days. I went back to the doctor’s office because the diarrhea seemed to be getting worse and there was no real change to my blurry vision/brain fog. So my doctor ordered a stool test and set me up the following day with a gastro specialist. The specialist ordered an endoscopy to be done. Two days later, my labs came back and I was positive for C. diff. So I thought “ok, we know what I have. Finally i can start getting better.”

Boy was I wrong. They prescribed me Flagyl. Two days into taking Flagyl, I was going to the bathroom 6+ times a day. I had a horrible fever and pain. I called the doctor and was told that was the only medication he knew of for C. diff. So I sucked it up and finished the 10 days. I actually felt better once I stopped taking the medication but I still had the diarrhea. They ordered another test and I was still positive for C. diff. So then after finding a great support group on Facebook, I was told about Dificid. I told my doctor about it and he said he would try and send in the order. Well my insurance gave him a little trouble, but once they saw I had failed Flagyl, they approved it. He put me on 10 days of Dificid. At about day 6, I could tell it was working much better. My stools were getting harder and my fever was going away. I remember stopping at a CVS because my blurred vision hadn’t fully cleared up and just crying and being angry at why it hasn’t gone away. And then my vision got even more clear after that talk with myself (but not the brain fog). I’m not sure if it was a mental issue or what.

Once I was done taking the Dificid, my doctor tested me the following day and I was still positive. So he ordered a 14 day course of Dificid. After the 14 day course, I was tested again and this time I was finally negative. After about a week, I started having stomach pain and diarrhea again. So I got tested again and it was back. This time, he referred me to an infectious disease doctor. That doctor straight out told me “Look I’ve had people die from this disease. It’s very serious, let’s get you on a 21 day course of Dificid.” So I took Dificid for 21 days. I got tested and the results were negative so I went back to work. At work (oil rigs), I started having blurred vision, fatigue, and brain fog again along with softer stools. I told my boss “I need to go home and get tested, something doesn’t feel right.” I went home and got tested. Once again, it was positive for C. diff. This time, the doctor put me on 28 days of Dificid. After I finished it, they tested me 2 weeks after I completed the Dificid to rule out false positives. And yet I was still positive. So he put me on another 28 days and yet the same results.

Finally, I heard about FMT. I looked and we had a local doctor at the hospital who did them. I went to an appointment and he saw my history and said he was sure he could get insurance to cover some of the cost. I said “whatever it takes doc.” In the meantime, my ID doctor had told me if I failed this latest course of Dificid, he was going to prescribe Alinia and he would do FMT pills. But I told him I already had something else going on, so I just took the Alinia. I felt great for the 6 days I was on Alinia. I stopped taking Alinia after 6 days so I could give my body 3 days to get rid of the antibiotic since my FMT was coming up.

I had my FMT in April 2018. That first day, I felt amazing. But that night, I got a low grade fever. I’m not sure if it was from my new gut flora or what. I did feel a bit better after that, enough to carry on and return to work. However, to this day, I still get sick often, my immune system is almost non-existent. My brain fog is not fully gone but it is much better. When I do physical labor or exercise, I feel nauseous afterwards, like the feeling of fainting no matter how light the work is. I’m still dizzy a lot and it’s affecting my work to the point that I probably won’t last this year without getting fired. All of my absences are for medical reasons, but at some point I’m sure my employer has to hire someone more reliable. I just recently had a sinus procedure with balloons to open up my sinuses and eustachian tubes. Hopefully this helps with the dizziness and balance issues I’ve had since C. diff. I would love to hear if others have had similar symptoms as I have and if they have been able to resolve them.