what is C. diff and why is it a concern when you overuse or misuse antibiotics? How does the bacteria germinate and cause infection when antibiotics "wipes out" your normal flora?

Answer 1

The best way to think of it, is that the C. Difficile bacteria are already in most normal people's large intestine. However not everyone has C. Diff Colitis, so the question is why is that? The C. Diff bacteria are actually kept in check by the other native gut flora! There is a competition for resources in the colon and the Clostridium family of bacteria (Such as C. Diff) are very slow to replicate, so they are usually "Beat to the punch" by the normal flora (E.Coli). So that means that the C. Diff can never get to such a large amount to cause issues.

Now in the setting of a patient who is on ORAL antibiotics, one of the unintended but known side effects are GI upset which is due to the bacteria flora getting killed by the medication. C. Diff has resistances to most antibiotics that are given orally and are not affected, so while the other flora die, the C. Diff can grow in this new environment. This process does take a few days and is associated with long term Oral antibiotic usage. (greater than a week).

So actually, fun fact, in patients with severe multi drug resistant C. Diff, they actually may be given feces transplanted from another person because the feces contains high levels of the "Good Bacteria" and could beat the C. Diff through competition of resources!

Answer 2

C. diff. stands for Clostridium difficile is a Gram positive bacterium. It can cause inflammation of the intestine and more specifically of the colon, which can lead to a condition called colitis. This type of infection often occurs after administration of antibiotics which can distrupt the gut flora, allowing C. difficile to replicate exponentially.