My family and I like to travel and we
frequently go to Rocky Point, Mexico we
were in the water
having fun, something hit me in the foot
and I immediately went down with
excruciating pain when I took my foot out
of the water it was bleeding profusely
and it was terribly painful and I was
screaming and people came running and it
was a stingray. About four days later we
got home and I went to see a doctor, over
a two-week period I was on five
antibiotics
one morning I woke up and started having
extreme diarrhea so I knew that
something was wrong and sure enough once
we did some tests we realized that that I
had C. diff. Normally the Clostridium difficile
organism resides in our colon without
causing any problems or instructions
however when we do take antibiotics for
whatever reason we develop an overgrowth
of Clostridium difficile because our
normal colon bacteria are destroyed from
the antibiotics we are taking so when we
develop a C. difficile infection what
we're trying to do is prevent this from
becoming a life-threatening occurrence
of sepsis.
It's estimated that there are over a
half a million cases of Clostridium
difficile infection a year with almost
30,000 deaths. Once we developed a
C. difficile infection
ironically the treatment is another
antibiotic there are several antibiotics
specifically three that are active
against the C. difficile bacteria.
C.difficile has begun to develop a
resistance to these antibiotics these
so-called super bugs that do develop
become increasingly difficult to treat
and we must be very very careful that we
don't use antibiotics against
C. difficile unless we are absolutely sure
the C. difficile is in fact causing
the infection that we're trying to treat.
We need to be cognizant of the fact that
these antibiotics that do so much good
can also do a lot of harm.
One of the ways that we can help
decrease this risk factor is by
utilizing antibiotics more appropriately
and this is typically what we call
antimicrobial stewardship. Stewardship
refers to the appropriate use of
antibiotics, meaning we use the correct
drug, in the correct patient population,
for the correct disease. We try and use
the optimal dosing regimen, and limit the
duration as much as possible. When we are
prescribed antibiotics by our physicians
very frequently we don't take them
all and we have leftover antibiotics, as a
result we put them in our medicine
cabinets and the next time we begin
feeling ill without even consulting our
physician we'll just start taking those
antibiotics again, that's a very
dangerous situation.
Clostridium difficile organisms and the spores that they form can live
on inanimate objects are up to months
at a time.
Proper hand hygiene practices for C. difficile
focuses on hand washing and this
includes proper technique covering all
surfaces of your hands, using warm
soapy water and also duration you want to
wash your hands for at least 20 seconds.
I became an extreme hand washer because I
realized that this bacteria lives
everywhere and as I'm fighting it I
don't want to reinfect myself. The important
things would be to bleach areas that can
be safely bleached, especially in the bathroom areas
they may have become contaminated and also
with bedding and clothes that may have
been soiled, to use bleach if
possible and washing those areas.
Communication between your healthcare
provider and yourself is of the utmost
importance. We should also be aware of the
fact that when a physician does
recommended an antibiotic you should ask
questions as to, Is the appropriate
antibiotic?, Do I really need this antibiotic?,
How long should I be taking this
antibiotic?, When should I stop it?
So what we're doing is asking all of us
to really get together and understand
what the problem is that we're facing
and how we together as a community
can eradicate this infection.