Back to Back Bacteria

It seems that since my immunosuppression was decreased, I've had more infections than when they were at full strength.  It seems very ironic, but is probably just some bad luck.

While we were on vacation this summer, I got a very small infection on the base of my thumb.  I woke up with a little blister which I popped and treated with neosporin.  It got worse as the day progressed and I seriously considered going to urgent care that evening.  But that seemed premature.  It was only one day old and I thought I should give the neosporin a chance to do its job.  My morning it was much worse and we did go to urgent care.  They prescribed Bactrim and sent me home.  Two days later it was worse, so I called and they put me on Cipro.  It continued to get worse.  My hand looked like a blow-up glove and the swelling was half down my arm.  So two more days, I went to the ER.  They sliced it open, put antibiotic and a hydrogen peroxide treatment into it to clean it out.  I was also put on Clindamycin.  It was cultured and identified as Staph aureus, but not MRSA.

This seemed to work.  I had to leave the wound open for several days and continue the hydrogen peroxide treatment on my own which was no fun, but it was getting better.  After a few weeks, the swelling went down and I was back to normal.

Then, in early October, I came down with a fever and diarrhea.  It didn't clear on its own so I went to the doctor.  It turns out I have C-diff.  Its a bacteria that takes over when a person has been on antibiotics for awhile.  It was probably the Clindamycin that caused the C-diff.  Its unusual to have that long of a time-span between, but possible.  So, I was put on another antibiotic, Flagyl and that seems to have done the job.  I tested negative for C-diff last week.  I'm feeling better and my blood sugars are coming back down.  They were really high during the C-diff experience.

Now the worry is about my islets.  I had my quarterly labs done last week.  My C-peptide was undectable and my A1c has increased to 7.3.  Dr. Bellin is having me do a stimulated C-peptide to see if there will be any C-peptide activity after having some carbs.  I'm very anxious to see how this comes out.