Severe Dehydration And Bloody Diarrhea

[Adria]

Hello Everyone,

I have just returned home from the hospital after being hospitalized in the critical care unit for the past 6 days. For the past 2 weeks I have been having multiple daily bouts of bloody diarrhea, lower left sided abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and a fever (100-101F). After being given two shots of penicillin over the course of two weeks with no improvement my primary care doctor finally decided to admit me. Needless to say, the POTS is completely and totally out of control. When I arrived at the hospital I was so severely dehydrated that I had to endure 35 needle sticks before I was able to have a small I.V. successfully started on me. Needless to say I am covered in an array of purple, blue, green and red bruises. The next day my doctor ordered a PICC line so that I would be able to undergo CT and MRI scans with contrast in addition to receiving a large amount of fluids, IV antibiotics and oral antibiotics. Several tests later, I was informed that I do not have Clostridia dificil or any other parasite. My doctors are leaning towards either a severe viral infection or Colitis (caused by my auto-immune condition Behcet's Disease). I am back home now and still suffering from diarrhea and my temperature is gradually starting to creep back up again. This illness has caused me to lose 27 pounds over the course of four short days. To make matters worse, I will not be able to see a GI doctor until the first week of December which means that I have to wait even longer to have my colonoscopy done, not that I am looking forward to the prep in any way, shape or form. I was given an anti-diarrhea medication by my primary care docs' partner but I have not filled it. I have had a lot of problems with constipation in the past and I am very concerned about taking something that could put me back into that state.

Quick Questions:

1) My PICC line was removed before I was sent home however I was not given any instructions as to how to take care of the wound. When I was in the hospital they cleaned the area with alcohol. I do not know if I am supposed to continue using alcohol to clean it or whether it's okay to use neosporin on it.

2) Has anyone else had to deal with crazy GI symptoms that seem to come from no where? just curious.

[Sunfish]

hi adria -

so sorry for what you've been going through. i'm struggling more than my "normal" at the moment myself so am going to have to try to come back to respond to more of your GI issues but having had many PICC lines myself (so many that i'm no longer able to have one placed due to too much scar tissue) i thought i'd at least chime in quickly re: the site where your PICC was pulled. you really shouldn't have to do anything to it at all. though you may be left with a small scar it will heal more quickly than you can imagine. depending on the doc i was told to leave it covered (just a bandaid) for 24-48 hours and then just to let it be. many times i have had PICCs pulled while still hospitalized and they never did anything else either.

i was never told to not put neosporin or anything else on it. neosporin can actually cause irritation at times so i don't tend to use it unless instructed to specifically; when i do use something i've been told bactrim is better as it has less potential for irritation. but that's here nor there as i've never left it on a PICC removal site. alcohol won't generally hurt anything but again, it's probably not necessary either.

hope this helps. i'll try to get back to write more about some of the GI issues when i'm able....

melissa

[pat57]

oh my. I think you need that anti-diarrhea medication! Talk to the pharmacist about your concerns- or the Dr.

Hope you get well soon, and get some answers.

[MomtoGiuliana]

So sorry you are having such awful symptoms. My sister is having similar symptoms right now. It all started for her with a kidney stone. She has had weeks of diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and is now in the hospital due to dehydration and a temp over 102. She is also experiencing pain in her arms and hands. It all has not been sorted out yet, but your post makes me wonder if perhaps you are both experiencing something similar. Other than the kidney stone she does not have a diagnosis or any condition diagnosed in the past.

BTW, she is in Virginia and an attorney?your username suggests the same?

[JenniferInOhio]

First thing I thought of was e coli with the bloody diarrhea.

[sally]

Hello,

Hope you feel better soon and so sorry you had experienced this scary thing...

Your symptoms sound alot like when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. Did they do a colonoscopy in hospital? That's how they diagnosed Erin's UC plus bloodtest results and ruling out other stuff as well. When she first came down with UC (before we knew what it was) she had bloody diarrhea out of nowhere but started out small and scanty but this lasted 45 days straight. She had a colonoscopy shortly after that which showed nothing unusual (which i now find hard to believe, personally). Then about 1 month later... out of nowhere again it started up, but this time fever, and horrendous bleeding. She ended up with pancolitis the second time (meaning her entire large colon was affected). That time, she spent 19 days in hospital and lost over 20 lbs. transfusions & all. They gave her long term steriods to help stop it plus another drug at the time, she now takes pentasa & Imuran daily and hasn't had another flare since, thank the Lord!

I wish you the best and hope it is not colitis or crohns disease but maybe a weird viral thing causing this. Although, I would advise not to wait if possible on having the colonoscopy to avoid missing what is going on like our daughter had happen at first. But, if it is an auto immune problem causing it...there are very good medications out there to help with the flares or keep them at bay from coming back again at all. Good luck and hope you are well soon. GI problems are NOT any fun to have at all!

to look for information check out...

http://www.ccfa.org/

[sue1234]

Twenty years ago my 1 year old had bloody diarrhea, and it turned out to be salmonella. But, assuming with your PICC line in, you already had antibiotics, so that would have taken care of that. Did they do a stool analysis??

[Adria]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for all of your advice and well wishes. I decided to contact the GI doctor that saw me during my stay in the hospital since the bloody diarrhea is back up to 5 times a day and the fever has once again returned. He seems to think it may be c. diff. even though the stool cultures that were performed at the hospital came back negative. Apparently, the presence of flagyl and iv antibiotics in your system can cause you to test false negative.

I was diagnosed with C. diff. for the first time when I was 16 years old. I went on a family vacation to Cancun, Mexico. I was on prednisone at the time for the treatment of Behcet's Disease, an auto-immune condition that is similar to lupus. We did not drink the water but we did get ice in our sodas. When I returned home I started having bloody stools and lower left sided abdominal pain. My GI doc did a stool culture and it came back positive for Clostridium difficile. I was treated with vancomycin at the time due to the fact that I absolutely could not tolerate flagyl. It did not matter whether I took it with or without food it simply refused to stay down. I tested positive for C. diff. again in college when I was about 19 with similar symptoms.

The GI doc said that once you get a C.diff. infection even though the vancomycin kills off the overgrowth of the bad bacteria the spores can still remain in your colon indefinitely. Taking broad spectrum antibiotics can cause the spores to take off and trigger yet another infection. Also, every successive infection of C.diff. tends to be more aggressive than the one that came before it. I had no idea that C.diff. could cause fever, bloody diarrhea for 3 + weeks, 30 pound weight loss in less than a week, abdominal pain, and severe nausea. No one ever informed me that this bacterial infection would be a recurrent thing or that it had the potential to be so destructive. Looks like yet another diagnosis to add to list

Unfortunately, due to all the nausea, vomiting and bloody diarrhea I am confined to the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) for Thanksigiving So incredibly unfair. Why couldn't this have happened at a time when I am not surrounded by so much amazingly delicious looking and smelling food???

My GI doc also wants me to come in for a colonoscopy on Monday afternoon. He wants to check me for ulcerative colitis since the symptoms are incredibly similar to those of clostridium difficile and I am at risk of developing it due to the fact that I have Behcet's Disease. So I will be starting the lovely ginger lemon flavor phospha soda prep on sunday. I am really not looking forward to this considering that I am all ready rapidly dehydrating.

Sitting down my HR is 130 and standing up it's 180. My cardiologist's partner, who incidentally knows very little about POTS, informed me that as long as I stay under 200 beats per minute that I do not need to be concerned about a cardiovascular event. I tried to explain to her that I was not concerned about suffering from a CVE I just want to be able to breathe when I stand up. I don't think that's asking too much (sorry, venting). She just told me that my heart rate was most likely elevated due to my recent illness and that I should just try to take it easy. Sometimes I really wish that I could just give her a tiny sample of what it actually feels like to try to stand up and otherwise function with a heart that is doing its own personal aerobics routine. The experience is many things but "easy" is not one of them.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and eat a little extra for me

[Mrs. Burschman]

Colonoscopy: Yuck

Colonoscopy prep: Bigger yuck

C. diff: Biggest yuck!

I had it about seven years ago. I couldn't take Flagyl either -- it made my stomach hurt so bad, I thought I was going to die. So I took Vancomycin for MONTHS. When it kept coming back, then I took cholestyramine, which is a cholesterol drug that seems to bind up the bad germs and help the body eliminate them. Luckily, it hasn't come back in me, but it took almost a year to get rid of the nasty stuff.

I had to get a colonoscopy, too. The doctor couldn't believe that I could still have C. diff after it being treated that long. I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. But it was a misdiagnosis. There was no evidence of it during a later sigmoidoscopy. But I was actually happy to have the colonoscopy done, because my Dad died of colon cancer at age 49. So I figured it's never too young to start getting screened for that, too!

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone in this, either! And I'm really sorry you had to miss out on Thanksgiving. You'll have to eat an extra big Christmas dinner when that time comes!

Amy

[MomtoGiuliana]

This is what my sister has just been diagnosed with (C. dificil). She is still in the hospital with it. It's been a horrible experience. So sorry for anyone else who has had to go through it as well. I am concerned to see that it can flare up later.

Adria--hope you procedure goes ok. Maybe you will need to be in the hospital to be kept appropriately hydrated for the prep. Your heart rates sound high as it is. Please take care!