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C-Diff Infection Causes Death

What is C-Diff?

First and foremost, I am a lawyer, not a medical doctor and all medical decisions should be made after consulting with a trained physician. With that being said, I have represented too many families who needlessly lose their loved ones due to a bacteria called C-Diff. C-Diff is short for Clostridium Difficile.

C-Diff is a bacteria that naturally lives in your intestines. There are thousands of different types of bacteria that live in your intestines. Some are good and some are bad. “Good” bacteria can help to kill the “bad” bacteria. Clostridium Difficile is a bad bacteria. When you are healthy and not taking antibiotics, the millions of good bacteria in your system keep the C-Diff under control. However, when you take an antibiotic, much of the good bacteria in your system gets killed. If the C-Diff is strong and does not get killed with the rest of the bacteria then it is possible that the C-Diff will grow out of control and overpopulate your intestines. When this happens you may get C-Diff Colitis, which is what can kill you if not properly treated.

If the C-Diff is left to grow unchecked, it produces two types of toxins that affect the body and gives you the symptoms of the actual disease. The symptoms include cramping and diarrhea which can progress into the flu-like symptoms of weakness, dehydration, nausea, and vomiting.

There is a much greater risk of nursing home patients and hospital patients contracting the deadly C-Diff virus. These patients are in a setting where C-Diff is more prevalent and their health is already poor before the C-Diff. Once antibiotics are given to patients in these types of settings, the risk for developing a C-Diff infection and C-Diff Colitis increases. Age and the length of the hospital or nursing stay are also relevant factors in increasing the risk for C-Diff colitis.

How is this Problem Diagnosed?

There must be symptoms present to suspect that a patient is developing a C-Diff infection. I have given examples of the symptoms in the paragraphs above. I think that the most important symptom is diarrhea. I have seen reports that suggest that the diarrhea must be watery and it must occur three or more times a day for two or more days. This is a symptom that cannot be ignored. If your loved one is in a hospital or nursing home setting and they begin to have diarrhea, I suggest that you ask the nurse to order a test to see if there is C-Diff present in the culture. There is nothing to lose by having the test done and everything to gain. A timely diagnosis is extremely important to a successful recovery.

How is this Problem Treated?

Doctors usually prescribe another antibiotic to treat C-Diff. It is ironic that an antibiotic causes the problem and another antibiotic can fix it. Doctors usually prescribe metronidazole (Flagyl) for mild to moderate illness. Vancomycin may be prescribed for a case with more severe symptoms. Vancomycin is a very powerful antibiotic that can be last line of defense in some of these cases. I cannot begin to say how important it is to have a timely diagnosis. This is a curable problem. If treated correctly there is a very high chance for survival. However, I have families come to me whose loved ones have died because the signs and symptoms were ignored or not acted upon in a timely fashion.

There are other methods of treatment including probiotics and surgery, but those are decisions for the patient to make with their physician. They decisions to be made after the diagnosis reveals C-Diff. I will say it again, if your loved one is in a hospital or nursing home and they develop diarrhea please be very vocal about getting a test done for C-Diff. If ignored or not timely treated the C-Diff infection can kill them.

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