Less Cramping Pain Today

Slowly the cramping pain decreased over the past 3 days. That pain is in the left lower quadrant, but actually feels like the junction between the tranverse and descending colon. Because the pain got worse after meals, but slowly diminished before the next meal, I suspect it's related to vancomycin. Maybe that's the 'belly pain' which the pharmacy info described as possible (but not dangerous) vanco side effects.

Mostly my attitude changed from fear to acceptance of the cramping pain, after talking to my neighbor who's an internal medicine nurse. She's familiar with c-diff, flagyl and vancomycin. She said I should just endure soft stools and diarrhea, because that means vanco is fighting the c-diff. Although there are drugs like vicodin or bentyl for ibs like gut pain, most of those are anticholerginic, which could cause constipation, one of my original c-diff symptoms. While I'm fighting c-diff, diarrhea means the body is ridding itself of the bacteria. However I suspect that I don't get severe diarrhea, because I take probiotics, which positively affect gut motility. Those same probiotics keep me 'regular' even with hard stools.

My neighbor also reassured me that the pain could also be from vanco fighting the c-diff infection site. So I just kept drinking my peppermint tea and lots of liquids, while I ate easy to digest foods. The pain decreased even more today and was only slight after dinner today. I had more frequent stools, than pain tonight.

Best of all, the metallic flagyl taste FINALLY disappeared after a week, just like last time. Foods taste much better and I actually feel hungry for meals. I still dislike having to stay up late to take my last vanco dose. I don't seem to get my dinner dose before 7 pm. So I need to wait at least 4 hours to take the next dose. I'm tempted to eat ice cream with that dose tonight, but I want to try taking it with hazelnut milk at least once. Last night I took it after eating about 1/3 cup of ice cream and had almost no stomach sensation from the vanco.

2 more days on Vanco after tonight ... I sure hope this eliminates the c-diff. However, vanco was fairly easy to take, despite that 4th late night dose, compared to flagyl. I didn't need as much high fat foods as I was led (by the pharmacist) to believe. Or maybe my stomach adjusted to the vanco, so I reacted less. I'll see how taking it with hazelnut milk works tonight.