Link: Philadelphia Inquirer
Just hours before the intense nausea hit, Robin Wach� was bragging to her friends about how good she felt after surgery to treat an intestinal infection.
Then the mother of three got the worst case of diarrhea ever. It lasted for weeks and was so severe she could hardly leave her Ambler home.
Wach�, 45, was stricken by Clostridium difficile, a sometimes deadly bacterium that has recently become more virulent and widespread, putting health officials on edge.
"The disease that is being seen is much more severe, and there is a new epidemic strain circulating nationally and internationally," said Neil Fishman, a University of Pennsylvania infectious-disease specialist.
The infection initially had been found mostly in hospitals and nursing homes.
An Inquirer computer analysis shows the number of hospital patients diagnosed with the infection is rising.
In Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs, the rate of patients diagnosed with C. diff, as the disease is known, shot up 42 percent from 1997 to 2003.
In New Jersey, the rate more than doubled between 1997 and 2004 to 9.5 cases per 1,000 hospital patients. In 2004, hospitals in New Jersey diagnosed 10,852 patients with the illness, up from 4,818 in 1997.
Nationwide, there were 178,000 C. diff patients in 2003, about a 60 percent increase since 1997, according to the National Hospital Discharge Survey.
C. diff is a leading cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and, until recently, was primarily seen as a problem confined to hospitals and nursing homes.
Now researchers have identified a strain that appears to have developed resistance to some antibiotics. Further, it may no longer be confined to hospitals.
"We need to figure out whether the community cases are increasing," said L. Clifford McDonald of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I had surgery on 8/27/2007 to have my colon removed. The doctor filled me up with antibiotics before the surgery, On the 6th day I went to a rehab facility. When I went in I coulc walk to the dining room. That night the vomiting began and the diarhea began. Six days later I couldn’t walk to the door of my room and had to be taken by ambulance back to the hospital, I am home not just about finished with a 21 day treatment of flagyl, My legs also had no strength at all and a walk in the hall at my facility exhausts me. It has been the most horrible of all my surgeral expierence, My family had to wear gowns gloves and masks just to visit me as I was put in isolation.
I was in the hospital in july. Here recently I’ve had really bad abdominal pain that won’t go away. I was told that I need to submit to a stool sample to rule out. After going Through (2)surgery in seven days, it scars me to think I may have to go through this after only 3 1/2 out of the hospital. Does this come from neglect from hospital staff????
signed
Scared To Death
my mom developed c-diff in july after having surgery for a small bowel obstruction. since then, she has been trapped in a web that she can’t seem to get out of & it’s causing tremendous weakness, cramping, depression & embarrisment. her life has been confined between a rehab & the hospital with no end in sight. due to this infection, her legs are very weak therfore, she fell & broke her hip. it’s an awful, helpless feeling to watch her go through this. someone needs to help find an answer.