Mom has C Diff should I avoid being around her?

wwhelp2017 - thank you! I have had her on yogurt now since we found out she is colonized with it. She's also on a probiotic!

upallnight - I'm sorry to hear that it almost killed your husband! It's such a scary bacteria!! So glad your daughter recovered well when she had it though!

My husband has had c did several times. It almost killed him once. I have never caught it. Our daughter did however she was on antibiotics at the time for a uti. She recovered well. She was in high school at the time.

Brittany05, Start your daughter and your whole family eating Activia and get align to take every other day when you do not eat the yogurt.

Thanks for your input Tornadojan sorry to hear your mom had it so many times but glad to hear it's better now!!

Partsmom, I can't imagine what he must've been going through with the Lymphoma I'm sorry to hear that! My dad also has Lymphoma and I have seen how horrible it can be!! I'll keep your husband in my prayers! Also, I totally agree about not taking antibiotics! I'm trying very hard to not have to have my daughter on anything for this. The doctor said since she's not showing symptoms they're not going to treat it. Just have basic cleanliness. Wash hands after diaper change etc. Her Pediatrician is also saying that she has colonized C Diff but if she was to be on an antibiotic then that would probably bring out the symptoms of C Diff. Im not exactly sure what to do at this point since she tests positive but has zero symptoms.

Genesis1 I appreciate you giving me the heads up on the Gluten! My mom is gluten intolerant already so she stays away from gluten anyway. But that was a good thought I know those symptoms can be similar!

I could be way off base here but many of the symptoms described what I had for years. Then a chiropractor suggested I try going gluten free for 30 days. After 30 days my symptoms were gone. I have been on a gluten free diet for several years now and the symptoms have not come back. It may be worth a try.

My husband had c diff after being treated with antibiotics for what his primary physician thought was a gum infection that turned out to actually be a recurrence of lymphoma (which he had been treated for 3 years earlier). The problem is that c diff (they call it "difficult" for a reason) is resistant to most first-line antibiotics and when the normal gut bacteria, which keep the bad guys under control, get killed off, the c diff bugs can grow. A previous doctor who had moved out of the area had given us his number and said to call him if we had questions was the one who suggested checking for the c diff, which had been so bad that he wound up in the hospital because the diarrhea messed up his whole system. The moral of the story: avoid taking antibiotics for anything that is not a specifically confirmed diagnosis.

Hi, Brittany,

Wow, you really have your hands full. My mom - 80 years old at the time - had c diff 5 times during the first 6 months of 2008. She did come through it and is doing OK at age 91, so do not lose heart. We took basic precautions, but I don't remember turning my mom's house into a quarantine zone. What ultimately knocked it out were two things. 1. an actual cycling of the vancomycin and possibly one other more mainstream antibiotic - it was 10 years ago, but maybe you can look it up online. Vancomycin is about the most powerful antibiotic you can use. I think it was done over something like 3 weeks with it eventually tapering off. This was effective because you really have to make sure it is gone, otherwise it will come back - and each recurrence is supposedly more resistant. The other was a probiotic called Dr. Ohira's probiotic. It is pretty pricey, but available at Sprouts. It does not require refrigeration, which is nice. Anyway, this was recommended by a national radio host, Dr. Bob Martin. I am convinced that this probiotic saved her life, and she still takes it today. Again, as is so often the case you have to advocate for you and your loved ones - the doctors will just keep pushing antibiotics and you don't want to develop a resistant to those. Best wishes. I really thought my mom was in trouble with this, but it did clear up and she has not had a recurrence in 10 years.

I'm the original person who asked this question...Sorry I haven't replied sooner, for some reason my account isn't letting me login so I created a new one. Anyway, Thank you all for your opinions and thoughts. I appreciate all of them. Sorry to hear about your loved ones that have or had it! It's definitely a scary thing! UPDATE: I actually took my daughter to her pediatrician just this past week and told her about my mom having C Diff. I'm thinking it was just my mothers intuition, but I asked if I could have my daughters stool tested even though she wasn't and hasn't showed symptoms of C Diff. I kinda just wanted it to ease my mind. Anyway, I just received a call from her Ped last night and she said she tested POSITIVE for it!! (My heart sank of course) but she said since she's not showing symptoms they don't need to treat it. Just give her tons of probiotics and they'll retest soon. BUT this is where it gets even crazier...my parents have a Dog (Buster) back in late August he was having Diarrhea horrible!! (Like pure blood) the Vet put him on an antibiotic and a probiotic and told my mom he had a bacteria but the meds would help. My mom asked if what he had was contagious and the receptionist there said no. Anyway, long story short...we think that my mom and my daughter (possibly my whole family... still have to be tested) got C Diff from the dog!!! My mom called the vet today and she said yes, Buster had C Diff in August and she's sorry the receptionist told her it wasn't contagious, because it is! It all makes sense now, my mom was on a strong antibiotic in early September and came down with C Diff afterwards! My daughter tested positive as well but doesn't show symptoms... yet. Honestly I'm in disbelief, I can't believe my daughter has it. If she has it my husband and I probably have it too. Im very worried now, if my daughter gets sick and needs an antibiotic of some sort then the C Diff will probably really effect her. Has anyone ever heard of this?? (I read on another site that a lady had a cat that had C Diff and her kids got it from the cat. My mind has been blown)

We use gloves and these products to clean the bathroom that my 91 yr old FIL uses: www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=clorox+healthcare+bleach+germicidal 
They are the same products that I have seen in hospital rooms and they will kill C-diff. 

His C-diff reared its ugly head after antibiotics to help heal up leg ulcers. For the C-diff he had two rounds of Flagyl, then two rounds of Vancomycin, then finally a combination of Flagyl, Vancomycin and a third antibiotic that I do not recall. The triple antibiotic therapy finally kicked it. Total time elapsed for this adventure was about 6mo with part of it spent in the hospital and part in rehab.

I wouldn’t totally steer clear....(don’t deny your daughter quality time with her grandmom unless it’s absolutely medically necessary) but definitely take precautions.

Ask her pediatrician what he/she thinks...is taking probiotics an option (or eating yogurt)? Get their input. Stress good hygiene habits (easier said than done at that age). Definitely keep things disinfected/clean - bleach, etc.

Keep your child away, especially since she is so young. If she were to get C-Diff at such a young age, it would not be good.

Depends on where you are, you must wear protective clothing but just make sure you don't touch anything without wiping it down with a Clorox Wipe.

Just use basic precautions when at her house. I'm a nurse and whenever someone in the hospital has it, we use body fluid precautions (gown and gloves around actual diarrhea, etc.). You don't have to go to that extreme, but after using her bathroom, or helping to clean anything up, be sure to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water. Basic wipes (Clorox, antibacterial, etc.) will NOT get rid of C. Diff. Only soap and water will get it off of your hands. Hand sanitizer will not work as well. Just be careful and you should be fine.

wwhelp2017--I hope your mother has celebrated a happy and healthy 100th birthday by this time next year!

My mother caught it in the hospital. I was so upset. I gave her Activia everyday that has the good bacteria in it (the live cultures) and this put back the good bacteria her GUT needs into her system that the antibiotics were killing! C-Diff is very contagious, toilets have to be cleaned with Clorox wipes, railings, clothes washed in Clorox for whites. Dishes washed scalding hot water and hands washed continuously. Fingernails have germs under them. My dad caught it in a rehab after having surgery and he PASSED away. I am not over my dad passing away, it hurts real bad! So I am extra careful with my mom and if she doesn't want the yogurt on any particular day I give her Align the generic at CVS which is a probiotic. She is doing great by eating yogurt or the pill (align). She is 99 years old and I have been giving it to her since 2009. In 2015 she had a heart procedure (Valvuloplasty) hours before a hip replacement at age of 97 this is when she caught C-Diff at the hospital. be very careful and I would not let my child in around it. In the hospital they have cautions everyone has to wear a plastic cape and wipe off any instrument and throw away the cape that you wear over your clothes, everything has to be cleaned continuously if they follow directions as they should in the hospital. Doctor has to do it too. If I had known about the live cultures /probiotics in yogurt when my dad caught it, he would still be alive. Please be careful.

My experience with C diff is that I have had chronic diarrhea for many years from an unknown cause. I had a colonoscopy and I believe they saw one diverticulum in the colon.
Now I believe many radiologists will miss it in the upper digestive tract even on an MRI. I had a CT scan of my upper abdomen for another reason and the interventional radiologist said I had numerous diverticula in the upper small intestine. he said he saw them when most others don't because he was trained by someone who had a special interest and showed him how to look for them.
So it is possible that both your Mom and I have had them for many years. I tested negative for Cdiff and just put up with it but if I need to go out take a couple of Immodium which stops it for a couple of days, i do also wear Depends in case of leakage.
As far as staying away from your Mom as others have siad she does practise good hygiene and you are healthy young woman so I wouln't worry about your self but I would avoid eating or drinking at her house use a hand sanitizer as soon as you leave the house and before touching you car just to be safe. Definitely keep your daughter away till Mom gets a clean bill of health. no sense in inviting trouble.

Your mother is young to have C diff and seems to have been pretty unlucky, poor thing.

This must be worrying for you, with your little daughter to think of; but on the other hand... Setting up complex infection barriers now is a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, isn't it? If it were that easily transmissible you'd already be infected, surely.

Another reason people in hospitals and nursing homes are especially vulnerable is that larger numbers of them are taking antacids and PPIs, which are marvellous at protecting the stomach from ulcers and relieving symptoms of heartburn and indigestion but disastrous when it comes to what everybody's stomach acid is there for, namely killing pathogens. You and your daughter, both healthy young humans, are wandering around with a bug-killing bath of hydrochloric acid guarding your gut, which is likely to be a lot more effective than disinfectant wipes or hand gel.

If your daughter or you are under the weather with a cold or anything like that then perhaps avoid contact then. Other than that, keep your sense of proportion - we are all of us carrying inert infections all the time, there are thousands upon thousands of people incubating C diff, MRSA and all of the other terror-bugs, and most of the time you will never know who they are. At least you know your mother does practice good hygiene!

My husband had C-Diff from antibiotics too. He was incontinent both ways, so I was in direct contact with it. I made sure to wear well-fitting gloves and dispose of them and anything else involved in the process of changing him in a grocery and trash bag.  I scrubbed my hands and arms up to the elbows and used bleach to disinfect his bed and his linens.

Keep your daughter away. It can be on surfaces everywhere from just your mom touching things even if she has washed her hands. Most people do not wash hands properly and this is critical with infections as serious as C-diff. For example - antimicrobial wash under finger nails, between fingers, around thumb -- top of hands all for a total of 60 seconds soapy exposure -- frankly I don't know anyone that really does that -- so you may be removing alot of contamination -- but still have a few remaining bacterial cells on your hands that you are transferring to table tops, stove, sink and door handles, remotes, phone, etc. -- and how will your daughter stay away from a grandma's hug -- not likely.

If you are around mom - suggest you wash hands frequently especially before you leave and maybe change clothes when you arrive home.

Thank you, that is reassuring. I've just heard that the spores are very contagious and stick to your clothes and that's how you can get it. My mom is very clean and bleaches everything after she uses the bathroom or anything though. So I feel much better knowing it would have to be in food or something consumed. I appreciate your input. Thanks again!

C-diff is contagious but it usually an illness that passes from one already sick person to another already sick person. People with weakened immune systems, the elderly, etc. Patients in a hospital or a nursing home are the people who usually get it and the germ is carried from one patient to the next via nurses: on their clothes, hands, instruments, etc.

I worked in home health care for a lot of years and had patients with c-diff and I never had a problem with it.

Just use basic precautions like hand washing. It's not airborne, you and your family can't catch it by being in the same room as your mom. Even if she sneezed on you you wouldn't catch it. You would have to come into contact with her fecal material and inadvertently ingest it via contaminated food or poor bathroom hygiene.

For guidance you can visit CDC.gov for reading material re C.diff.

Thank you for the advice! I appreciate it. We (multiple people in my family including my daughter) have been around her A LOT and none of us have it...at least not yet. No one even told my mom that it was super contagious or anything we just read it online this week that it was. So now I'm a little freaked out. She's had the symptoms of it all since September, the docs kept telling her it was diverticulitis though, which ended up not being true. So now that we know it's C Diff. It worries me, since we haven't been avoiding contact with her...

I would also check with your daughter's pediatrician. I personally wouldn't risk it. Fecal transplants are amazing things that can totally heal people with different colon issues. Good luck to your mom - that sounds horrible. I had unexplained diarrhea a couple of years ago that lasted exactly two weeks. Had a stool sample and everything came back negative (no MRSA or C-Diff). But it was pretty rough for those two weeks. It stopped as fast as it started and I never did figure out what it was.

C Diff is hard to cure. I have had two family member who got it post op. both required a few weeks of IV antibiotics followed by 2 weeks of oral antibiotics.


Just one quick thought, taking probiotics and antibiotics at the same time can be a problem. Double check with the pharmacist about the timing of the two medications. I was told not to take Probiotics within a couple hours of antibiotics

For your child, I would talk to your doctor. If it were me, I would stay safe and wait until Mum's stool tests were clear for her to visit, I would continue to visit without the baby. Hygiene is so important to prevent the spread and a child that age is putting everything in their mouth. A flip side to that, my Granny had Chronic Leukemia, when my children had their Polio vaccine, we had to stay away from her as the baby could shed the vaccine and make Granny sick. We had to wait 6 weeks after each one before visiting. I could visit, just not the child.

Speaking as someone who has chronic IBS, your Mum's digestive tract may not go back to 'normal'. It may remain sensitive to various foods and medications, stress plays a big role in digestive health too.