Nurses with C-diff?

Five&Two Will Do · Mar 29, 2011

I work with a nurse who contracted it right before her honeymoon!

transplantlife · Mar 29, 2011

C-diff and many others things scare the bejeebers out of me. I'm currently in nursing school and I'm a transplant patient. I got a heart 4 years ago and while I'm doing well and my immune suppression is at the lowest level we can safely go, I'm still definitely compromised. I am damn near OCD with hand washing and will go to some pretty funny extremes not to touch my face while I'm working at the hospital in clinicals, but other than that, I say if I can get this far without catching anything (knock on wood) then you can too while taking antibiotics. yes, I know c-diff is an opportunistic when "good" bacteria are not enough to keep it in check, but the basic idea is the same no?

mcleanl · Mar 29, 2011

My guess is that most nurses have healthy immune systems. The major risk factors for c-diff include being over 65, long hospital stays and long course antibiotic use. I am thinking back....but I can't say I have ever known a colleague that has gotten it.

j464335 · Mar 29, 2011

Yes! I have known 4 nurses who have "picked it up"...literally, they weren't known for good hand washing skills. I am always worried about getting it, esp. when their is multiple pt's with it on my unit.. I also get a little OCD about it washing 'till my hands are raw, using hand sanitizer q 2 min, not touching my face, etc... I also keep a towel over my car seat and a hamper in my garage, when I get home I change the towel on my seat and strip down in my garage and leave my scrubs in the hamper there.

Trauma Columnist · Mar 29, 2011

Hand sanitizer DOES NOT kill C-dif. You must WASH your hands with soap and water.

I've been lucky - I work with many pts in the community who have/had c-dif and (knock on wood) I have never caught it. However, my immune system is pretty well developed after many years in the ER getting coughed on, spit on, etc. lol

loriangel14, RN · Mar 29, 2011

Yes I know one person who got C-diff right after starting her first nursing job.

RNTOBE_1970 · Mar 29, 2011

Worked with some CNA's that caught it.

ZippyGBR, BSN, RN · Mar 29, 2011

My guess is that most nurses have healthy immune systems. The major risk factors for c-diff include being over 65, long hospital stays and long course antibiotic use. I am thinking back....but I can't say I have ever known a colleague that has gotten it.

exactly, the biggest risk is 'picking it up' literally when you have an outbreak in the clinical area you work in ...

CT Pixie, BSN, RN · Mar 29, 2011

I had C-Diff years ago as a CNA. Back in the day when gloves were not used while toileting patients or during any type of care for that matter. I was a meticulous hand washer (my red, raw cracked hands proved it :)..can't figure out how I got it. At the time I wasn't my most healthy..had a few bouts of illness and on many rounds of antibiotics at the time I got c-diff.

melbelz · Jul 22, 2011

I am not a nurse but a cardiovascular sonographer. I did pick up C-diff from somewhere I work probably. There is a small percentage of people that actually have C-diff residing in their intestines. I was on antibiotics for 10 days for a UTI. The last few days on the antibiotics I had diarrhea and it went away after I stopped taking the antibiotics. A week later here comes the C-diff (more diarrhea). Strangely I am on more antibiotics, these are just a different kind that specifically are supposed to kill C-diff. All of my "good" bacteria was killed with the original dose of antibiotics just leaving me very susceptible to catching C-diff. I actually work mostly in a clinical setting and one day a week at a hospital. I have read what people wrote and they just tend to blame it on handwashing techniques following a patient with C-diff. My GI doc told me that C-diff spores are all over the hospital. They can live on any surface up to 6 months! Normal cleaning methods do not kill C-diff, you have to use bleach. I don't know many hospitals/clinics that use bleach on all their surfaces. Usually it is a transeptic, antibacterial spray that DOES NOT kill C-diff. A typical hospital scenario: You walk in a patients room and squirt hand sanitizer on your hand. You go in the room, maybe adjust the bed, turn on the light, take a blood pressure in a room where the patient is NOT in isolation for C-diff but the previous patient had it and it was not cleaned with bleach. You walk out and squirt sanitizer on your hand. That C-diff is on your hand and you thought you cleaned it. A lot of hospitals say squirt 5 times then wash your hands. You being a healthy person without a compromised immune system will be fine. But then you go to the next room and could potentially spread that C-diff to a patient who is on antibiotics. Any health care professional on antibiotics should be extra cautious and wash their hands pretty much all the time. Not only did I have diarrhea but started vomiting with the antibiotics for about 3 days. Can you say...almost ended up in the hospital from dehydration. The doc changed my prescription to a lower dose more times a day and that has helped tremendously. The worst part is that I read online that C-diff returns in a lot of people, so this might be an ongoing problem for me in the future. I love my job, but I guess it is a potential risk we take being in the health care field.

Shawn4z · Feb 22, 2012

I am a meticulous handwasher. Absolutely meticulous. I have short nails, I use the gel only after I wash. I contracted c.Diff at my very first nursing job in a large rehab facility... I had a flare-up of Diverticulitis and I was on a large round of Flagyl and Cipro, and after I began to feel better, I returned to work still on the antibiotics. I finished the antibiotics after 2 wks and began to have watery diarrhea 10 or more times a day. First, I was treated by the ER for a recurrence of Diverticulitis although I KNEW that's not what it was. 2 days later I returned to the ER with near constant diarrhea and vomiting I literally could not leave my bathroom for 2 days, and was admitted immediately for dehydration. Finally someone took a stool sample and I was found Cdiff positive. They put me back on Flagyl and Cipro which is what I was on when I contracted the infection in the first place. I asked to be changed to Vanco. The Hospital internal med guy changed me to PO vanco, 125 BID. after this course, I was still positive although the symptoms did subside for awhile. As soon as I finished the Vanco, Symptoms returned. My primary put me on 250 mg Vanco PO BID. Same exact results. Symptoms returned at end of course. I went to my GI guy who I see for the Diverticulitis. He put me on 250 MG Vanco QID at a pulse dose to be tapered over 2 months, along with florastor and align. 2 weeks after I finished the regimen, I submitted a sample, STILL POSITIVE!! 3 weeks after the end of the regimen, I am symptomatic again. Now my GI guy wants to try Dificid. It is going to cost me $2800.00 for a ten day supply. The Rehab facility where I worked maintains that I did not contract it there. ( 12 of my 22 patients were positive, and the rooms were not adequately decontaminated before new patients were placed in the rooms). I repeat. I am a METICULOUS handwasher. There is a thread on this site ( it's closed to new postings) Called RN with Recurrent Cdiff. There are tons of posts on there from health care workers who have contracted it at work while taking antibiotics. My GI DR himself contracted c.Diff while taking antibiotics for a URI. I will NEVER walk into another health care facility when I am taking antibiotics. I won't do it.