Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffThe first step in treating C. difficile is to stop taking the antibiotic that triggered the infection. For mild illness, this may be enough to relieve symptoms. But many people require further treatment.
Antibiotics
In an ironic twist, the standard treatment for C. difficile is another antibiotic. Doctors usually prescribe metronidazole (Flagyl) for mild to moderate illness. Vancomycin (Vancocin) may be prescribed for more severe symptoms. These antibiotics keep C. difficile from growing, which allows normal bacteria to flourish again in the intestine.
Side effects of metronidazole and vancomycin include nausea and a bitter taste in your mouth. It's important not to drink alcohol when taking metronidazole.
Probiotics
Probiotics are organisms, such as bacteria and yeast, which help restore a healthy balance to the intestinal tract. A natural yeast called Saccharomyces boulardii, in conjunction with antibiotics, has proved effective in helping prevent recurrent C. difficile infections.
Surgery
For people with severe pain, organ failure or inflammation of the lining of the abdominal wall, surgery to remove the diseased portion of the colon may be the only option.
Recurrent disease
About one-fourth of people with C. difficile get sick again, either because the initial infection never went away or because they're reinfected with a different strain of the bacteria. Treatment for recurrent disease may include:
- Antibiotics, which may involve one or more courses of a medication, a longer course of treatment or an antibiotic given once every two days
- Probiotics, such as S. boulardii, given along with the antibiotic medication
- Stool transplant (fecal bacteriotherapy) to restore healthy intestinal bacteria by placing donor stool in your colon. Although this is rarely done in practice, research has shown stool transplant to be helpful in selected cases.
- Kelly CP, et al. Patient information: Antibiotic-associated diarrhea (Clostridium difficile). http://www.uptodate.com. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Bartlett JG. Narrative review: The new epidemic of Clostridium difficile-associated enteric disease. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2006;145:758.
- Kelly CP, et al. Treatment of antibiotic-associated diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile. http://www.uptodate.com. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Kelly CP, et al. Clostridium difficile - More difficult than ever. New England Journal of Medicine. 2008;359:1932.
- LaMont JT. Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of Clostridium difficile infection. http://www.uptodate.com. Accessed Nov. 3, 2008.
- Durai R. Epidemiology, pathogenesis, and management of Clostridium difficile infection. Digestive Disease Science. 2007;52:2958.
- Monaghan T, et al. Recent advances in Clostridium difficile-associated disease. Gut. 2008;57:850.
- Sunenshine R, et al. Clostridium difficile-associated disease: New challenges from an established pathogen. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. 2006;73:187.
- Information for healthcare providers. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/id_CdiffFAQ_HCP.html. Accessed March 2, 2009.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, et al. Guideline for hand hygiene in health-care settings. MMWR Recommendations and Reports. 2002;51:RR-16. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/rr/rr5116.pdf. Accessed March 2, 2009.
