C. diff affects us all.

When I was first diagnosed with C. diff, I was relieved to finally have a diagnosis, but had no idea the slow recovery I had in store for me. I was dismissed several times by my primary doctor and at urgent care clinics for about two weeks as having the stomach flu. I asked several times for testing. All of my bloodwork came back okay and x-rays showed no issues, but no one would offer to do a stool sample test. I finally visited a doctor…

I had what was supposed to be a routine colonoscopy in April 2016. My doctor instructed me to use SUPREP to clean myself out for the procedure. The SUPREP made me very ill! I immediately got stomach pain, intestinal pain, severe diarrhea, and weakness. I had my colonoscopy at about 7:30 AM. When I woke up I was in terrible pain. The nurse said it was just air. The doctors kept me a little longer, then sent me home. Throughout the day, I…

I believe I caught C. diff in the hospital while having trauma surgery on my left knee and tendons from a bad fall on icy stairs. I also returned to the doctor’s office many times after the surgery; I could have caught it in that building. Having been in so many doctor’s office buildings and emergency rooms in the past few months, I felt that one of those places must have been the source of my infection. There was a period of two weeks where…

My name is Catherine Williams. Just like many of you, I have had several episodes of recurrent C. diff., which after my initial episode, was always caused by antibiotics for other conditions, and also became resistant to any known standardized treatment. In 2012, I realized I was going to die unless FMT worked. Many of you will be familiar with my story; the months, years really, spent lying in bed without the energy to do anything. Feeling…

I remember sitting at work in early March and noticing increasing pain in the lower right molar area of my mouth. “Let’s face it,” I thought. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself since you had the twins.” Yes, they were three, but here I was 49, working full-time and caring for three year olds again. By the time they went to bed at night, I was spent, and so when choices had to be made, I came last. I wasn’t brushing or flossing like I…

I learned about C. diff the hard way. In October of 2013, I was diagnosed with a C. diff infection following the use of clindamycin. I was prescribed vancomycin to get rid of the C. diff, but every time I stopped the vancomycin the C. diff would return. It took me six months of being ill, rounds of failed vancomycin treatments, and going from doctor to doctor before I finally found a doctor that would do a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) via a…

After four rounds of antibiotics in an eight-week period, I was diagnosed with C. diff on June 9th, 2015. I am positive that I had it and went undiagnosed for at least three to four weeks. When I got the diagnosis, my doctor started me on ten days of Flagyl. After three days, the diarrhea started again, and then I was given Flagyl again (except for two weeks this time). Thirteen days after finishing the Flagyl, the diarrhea started again. During…

My name is Lawrence, and I am 28 years old. In November 2012, I was 24 years old. I went to the doctor for a staph infection in the form of a boil. My doctors prescribed me clindamycin to kill the bacteria in the infection. About a day or two later, I started to feel like I had a stomach bug. After a couple of days of having what I thought was just a stomach bug, I quit using the clindamycin. However, little did I know, it was much worse. I…

Unlike in the lives of so many who struggle for months and years, as C. diff stories go, mine is rather unremarkable and short-lived. For that reason, I was hesitant to share my story. While I am grateful that this was the case, I am also keenly aware that C. diff is a true menace and threat to life for many. Sadly, this does not need to be the case. The problem for me was an extended episode of bronchitis which had just been diagnosed as…