The real pandemic?
by Jennifer Rae Vliet
When Covid hit the scene, it was a slap across the face of the masses suffering from and cursed with ‘C-diff’. If anything has been out of control, highly contagious, and frighteningly deadly, it has been this intestinal spore infection.
This infection is estimated to cause half a million illnesses in the United States each year with an estimated 24,000 deaths. One in 11 people over the age of 65 diagnosed with a healthcare-associated C.diff infection die within one month and are the whopping 80 percent of those that end up dying period. People in general are 7 to 10 times more likely to get a C.diff infection while taking an antibiotic and if not infected during, it lends itself to being contracted within a 30-day period after ingesting the prescribed medicine. This is an infection prevalent in hospitals and in nursing homes and once infected if you can overcome the active toxins that wreak havoc on the intestinal track and colon, you are placed in a status of “remission” and remain vulnerable to being reinfected if lifestyle changes are not adopted and implemented.
WHAT IS C.diff?
Clostridium Difficile spores are amazing bacterium and a frightening biome species all at the same time. These spores were created by God to aid greatly in the decomposition process when we die; they serve a great purpose! The person sitting here reading this have these spores living on their skin right now. It is when there is an overgrowth present in your gut, when the problems can really set in. These spores can literally burrow holes into your intestines.
Symptoms of C.diff are an inflamed intestine and that of the condition called ‘colitis’. There often times is a misdiagnosis of just colitis when the infection is ramping up. Hospitals were literally turning Cdiff active patients away especially during the onslaught of Covid. Patients here in the American healthcare system but even more so in Canada were being told to go home and suffer. In fact, currently the Ontario region of Canada is having a serious epidemic of Cdiff in their hospitals. I was speaking to a client in Ontario this past Friday and they mentioned how the infection is ramping up and hospitals are over run and turning away the sickly. It is truly a miserable illness.
Here is an explanation of what Cdiff is from the Canadian public health website:
What is Clostridium difficile (C. difficile)?
Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is a bacterium that causes mild to severe diarrhea and intestinal conditions like pseudomembranous colitis (inflammation of the colon). C. difficile is the most frequent cause of infectious diarrhea in hospitals and long-term care facilities in Canada, as well as in other industrialized countries.
Most cases of C. difficile occur in patients who are taking certain antibiotics in high doses or over a prolonged period of time. Some antibiotics can destroy a person’s normal bacteria found in the gut, causing C. difficile bacteria to grow. When this occurs, the C. difficile bacteria produce toxins, which can damage the bowel and cause diarrhea. However, some people can have C. difficile bacteria present in their bowel and not show symptoms.
There are many different strains of C. difficile and one strain, North American Pulsed Field type 1, known as NAP1, is likely to cause serious illness. Read more, here.
The CDC has lots to say about CDI as well:
When Covid presented itself into our germ world, the Facebook forums for C.diff were all abuzz. One of the main ways people get infected is through surface contact with the mighty spores. People who do not wash their hands after having bowel movements are some of the guiltiest of passing this on but acquiring this deadly infection is not limited to that. The comments were about how maybe now that people are being taught how to properly wash their hands and establishments are ramping up their disinfecting of surfaces and bathroom efforts to kill the C-19 virus, that maybe the numbers of C.diff infections would fall. These spores also are found in the vent systems in hospitals, in the dirty corners of a colonoscopy room (as well as ON improperly cleaned colonoscopy instruments inserted) and ingested through the nasal passageway. The spores can also be found in raw meat infected with feces from the animal or an infected person cooking your food. So, in order to really eradicate this highly infectious illness, it is imperative that serious efforts of cleanliness are made in our healthcare establishments. There are so many options like light therapy, special solutions used on surfaces, bedding, gowns, etc., that have been tested by the Infectious Disease Specialists, and testing of patients with quarantine measures in place to protect those that are not infected.
Here is some commentary on that from the NIH, but we know it is important to be highly suspect of their reports. They speak of testing for CDI (C.diff ) going down but also report new strains of C.diff presenting. Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) during the COVID-19 pandemic – PMC (nih.gov)
And this brings us to the topic for today…the FMT. There has been a procedure becoming more mainstream that was once considered a “back alley” treatment for curing someone entirely of this infection. It has been referred to as a Fecal Matter Transplant, but this acronym more accurately refers to the Fecal Microbiota Transplant. When I was suffering with this active infection years ago and called an FMT doc in La Jolla, California to learn about the process, I was told by her that I could literally put a small amount of a very healthy family members fecal matter into a couple of shakes for free at home and drink it down or come in for the transplant. They do the transplant one of two ways, within a capsule that you swallow into your stomach or healthy person’s stool inserted into the rectum. I personally did none of the above and managed to go into remission over a period of time with RIFE treatments but that is a wonderful treatment to post about at another time. Years back, you had to have an active infection twice in a row in order to qualify for an FMT at all, but today we are featuring the article from The Guardian on how the FDA has now approved FMTs as a treatment at first proof of the infection. You can read about that by clicking The Plain Truth’s Your Health Today Online Banner below:
