Hey UC’ers,
I hope you all are doing well, and I wanted to send out a quickie message since there is a bit of a nasty distant relative of ulcerative colitis that we all should be on the look out for. His (maybe it’s a she…ok ok…) name is C-diff. Or as some of the scientists might call it: Clostridium difficile Infection.
You can find all sorts of information online, here is a link from the Center for Disease control about c-diff: http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/organisms/cdiff/Cdiff_infect.html
C-diff is unfortunately more common with folks who have UC. I myself have come down with it a few times and its not pretty, sure doesn’t smell pretty, and it often has very similar symptoms to ulcerative colitis.
If you had a big group of UC’ers in a room, there would be a very good amount of them who have been dealt the unfortunate experience of going through a c-diff infection and treatment. And it is a bit scary cause like symptoms of colitis, you’re often running off to the restroom with some urgency, maybe some bad cramping, and it can get out of control pretty quickly.
The good news is that there are a few ways to treat it. The most common way is with antibiotics, however there is a recent move with a growing amount of scientific studies mentioning the use of fecal transplants to cure the c-diff as well.
Heck, there was even an interview we conducted on the site where this exact topic and fecal transplants was talked about by two different doctors (one being my very own gastroenterologist Dr. Stollman who was one of the lead scientists in a study about c-diff and fecal transplants or FMT). That story is here: Fecal Transplant Question and Answer Interviews
So, the reason for this post is simple, be aware that c-diff and UC are very different, however the symptoms are often the same. Treatments can be different as well, so when in doubt…talk to your doc and request a stool sample test to rule out c-diff, especially if you are having a super hard time getting past UC symptoms that just don’t seem to be responding or if you just think something else might be up besides the UC symptoms you may be used to.
Best of luck to you all with a great rest of the week, and great rest of the summer (northern hemisphere folk:), it’s not tooo far away Australianos either:)
To hard poops and single toilet paper wipes for all,
Adam
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
Leave a comment, ask a question, take advantage of our past experiences here, use the search boxes, they are your friends to0:)
I’ve written 2 different ulcerative colitis ebooks, you can check them out here.
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