hi all,
to cut a long story short, I became very ill after taking Amoxicillin for a tooth infection. severe diarrhea, pain in my abdominal wall, and high fever. now, I also have severe juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (I've been in a wheelchair most of my life), so I have a history of very odd complications and high fever is very dangerous for me. anyway, the dr gave me Metronidazole for c. difficile, which improved the diarrhea and the fever, but it was making me violently sick. I was throwing it up consistently, until the vomiting became just really, really awful. so the dr told me to stop all medication and see what happens. yesterday was good, although today I have some pain in my abdomen again.
anyway, of course I'm on a bland, dairy-free diet and am taking a dairy-free probiotic. anything else I should be taking? any antibacterial & antifungal supplements that you recommend? any experience with severe c. difficile? needless to say, I'm also extremely weak after losing so much nutrients and fluids.
(nb. I can't afford any medical care except for emergencies)
I'd also suggest that improving probiotic status will help immune function all these have be linked to inhibiting C difficile.
Lactobacillus casei Lactobacillus bulgaricus Bifidobacterium bifidum
I weigh less than 60lb due to osteoporosis, etc. should I take a smaller dose?
The sooner you raise 25(OH)D to 50ng/ml the better. It's generally the case that 1000iu for each 25lbs is sufficient as a maintenance amount but to raise status you need a higher amount initially.
Regular full body NONBURNING sun exposure between 10am ~ 3pm (when UVB levels highest) would speed up Vitamin D acquisition.
The sooner you raise 25(OH)D to 50ng/ml the better. It's generally the case that 1000iu for each 25lbs is sufficient as a maintenance amount but to raise status you need a higher amount initially.
Regular full body NONBURNING sun exposure between 10am ~ 3pm (when UVB levels highest) would speed up Vitamin D acquisition.
That sounds like a good plan to me.
7X50,000iu=350,000iu over the week, and that is a sensible amount to take to try to deal with the current deficiency status.
50,000/7=just over 7000iu daily and that is a reasonable amount to take daily to keep levels above 60ng/ml for most people. However a 25(OH)D test after 3months or so would be an idea to see if you are under/over target.
I think backing up with UVB/sun exposure whenever possible is also a good idea.
The body has a way of adjusting the amount absorbed (from skin and orally) so the higher your 25(OH)D the less is absorbed and the opposite is also true, people who are deficient have bodies hungry for vitamin d that will absorb more D3 when available than people with adequate or high status.
I have been doing a lot of research on c-diff the past few weeks...
You need to get past this and you should consider it an emergency until it is gone.
You can also ask your doctor if he can determine which kind of c-diff toxin you have. Most labs cannot test for the different types but there are some new strains out that are very very dangerous.
my question is why did your doctor not start you on vancomycin? this is the other drug of choice for c-diff and it probably will not cause any nausea for you. Flagyl, what you were on, is a very rough drug. ask him about this. it can be taken orally, vanco, Many people think it is just an IV drug, but not so.
I dont know if MMS will help with c-diff. the c-diff spores are fairly resiliant and few medications can get though them, This is why it keeps reoccuring in some people. One can also re-contaminate themselves or others because the spores live on surfaces for a long time. chlorine dioxide is the only type of cleanser that I know of that can kill them on surfaces,,, I had forgotten that, so maybe MMS is the treatment to consider. read about it here www.jimhumble.biz
Other things I would try are grapefruit seed extract. you can purchase it in pills which is more expensive or in liquid and put drops into empty capsules. 6 week treatment at least. you might want to check out this page https://www.herbal-medicine-depot.com/c-diff-virus.html
be sure to take a good probiotic like VSL#3 at least twice a day when diarrhea is happening.
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"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." Marcus Aurelius
Another strategy that might be worth considering is getting a healthy gut flora from a healthy friend/relative and doing a fecal transplant. I appreciate it may not be an appealing idea for treatment but it requires only a small volume of stool, and may require only one treatment.
I think that whatever treatment is given we also have to replenish normal gut flora, hopefully with less pathogenic form, reduce the C. difficile and other pathogenic gut flora toxin load in the bowel and bolster the bolster the patient's own immune response.
I don't think a single approach to this problem is going to be successful in the long run. I think we need to use a whole battery of approaches at the same time to avoid the problems of resistant strains perpetuating the problem.
Hence the reminder to use Curcumin along with your Vitamin D3 and probiotics. Curcumin or spice inhibit the growth of Clostridium difficile
Based on the protocol my naturopath uses for intestinal infections and has a lot of success in doing so, the most important thing is to kill the infection. That's number one, everything else is sidelined. Once it's killed then you can build up the friendly bacteria and work on the immune system. He said one of the biggest reasons for failure is that healing must take place in stages in the correct order. Trying to do a bunch of things hoping something will stick is not the best way and often will fail. You don't want to kill an infection partially and have it come back, often stronger with resistant strains.
Friendly bacteria should be at optimal levels to prevent an infection but once you have an infection is is often useless to supplement with probiotics because a raging infection will just overcome the friendly bacteria. Once the infection is mostly killed then you can supplement. Then you work on the immune system, nutrition and other factors which may have led to your being susceptible to an infection.
Based on the protocol my naturopath uses for intestinal infections and has a lot of success in doing so, the most important thing is to kill the infection. That's number one, everything else is sidelined. Once it's killed then you can build up the friendly bacteria and work on the immune system. He said one of the biggest reasons for failure is that healing must take place in stages in the correct order. Trying to do a bunch of things hoping something will stick is not the best way and often will fail. You don't want to kill an infection partially and have it come back, often stronger with resistant strains.
Friendly bacteria should be at optimal levels to prevent an infection but once you have an infection is is often useless to supplement with probiotics because a raging infection will just overcome the friendly bacteria. Once the infection is mostly killed then you can supplement. Then you work on the immune system, nutrition and other factors which may have led to your being susceptible to an infection.
I think your naturopath is misguided. I doubt you are going to totally kill C difficile or any other pathogen. I think you will only succeed in limiting their numbers. It for that reason I believe my strategy to build up host immune status and gut flora are an essential element to re-establishing a healthy gut flora. You have to appreciate the enormity of the problem with 500 to 1000 species of bacteria living in the human gut and a roughly similar number on the skin.
Bacterial cells are much smaller than human cells, and there are at least ten times as many bacteria as human cells in the body.
The idea that you can eliminate every single pathogenic bacterial cell and start afresh with a totally sterile gut is simply not tenable.
But we're not talking about ridding the gut of every pathological bacterial cell or even limiting their numbers, we're talking about curing an infection.
Maybe you'd have to have a clostridium difficile infection to appreciate the before-and-after, but there's the infection, which is totally miserable, and the infection cured which is totally wonderful.
My infection was cured with 50 drops Grapefruit Seed Extract, 5 drops oregano oil, 5 drops Betaine HCL in water 3 times a day.
I had c. difficile and here's what my naturopath told me to take:
50 drops Grapefruit Seed Extract, 5 drops oregano oil, 5 drops Betaine HCL in water 3 times a day.
After a month of taking this 3x a day every day I was 90% cured, after two months, 100% cured.
It's a very bitter drink but it's nothing compared to symptoms and and danger of the c. diff. Bitter is good! Bitter means killing pathogens.
Yes, as I mentioned GSE is very powerful. You can put those drops in a capsule and take with water to loose the bad taste effect. Betaine can be taken in a pill form.
Fecal transplant, Ted? sounds disgusting.. why would one want to contaminate oneself with another's stool? God only knows whats in it and labs have sufficiently proven that they are incapable of diagnosis of all the organisms in there.
Take VSL#3 probiotic, eat lots of veggies, take NOW brand Inulin with it to establish a colony. Make your own yogurt and put a cap of vsl#3 in the culture at 110 degrees.
Yes, as I mentioned GSE is very powerful. You can put those drops in a capsule and take with water to loose the bad taste effect. Betaine can be taken in a pill form.
I believe the reason you take the GSE, oregano oil and Betaine HCL in water is so that it kills everything from the mouth on down since c. diff, if not caused by antibiotics causing overgrowth, is 'caught' orally (I got mine from a salad bar) and the spores can survive outside the intestines for a long time.
severe c. difficile colitis
Hybrid Mode
