I TOLD the hospital there was something wrong. Sheesh.

So as you all know (since I've been whining a lot lately), I've been struggling with D for about two months ever since a stomach bug ran through my family. I thought my Remi infusion a month ago would knock things back into sync (as did my GI when he popped in during my infusion to see how I was). It didn't, and I was having D about 5-6 times per day. Then the next week after the infusion, I started having 30 BMs/day. I also had right side pain, bloating, and a sinus infection to top it all off. I was admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics and they did a stool sample. The flex segmoidoscopy showed no active Crohn's.

I saw my GI a couple of days after getting discharged a week ago, still having awful, foul-smelling D several times a day. I asked to do a stool sample again and just test for everything. They called yesterday to say that the c. diff. was negative.

Then surprise, I got a call from the county health department today to tell me that the lab who did the test reported to them that I have parasites! Giardia, to be specific. They asked a million questions about it to see where I could have gotten it from, but we ended up just having no idea. So I left a vm with my GI to get a script for some anti-parasitical drugs.

It's nice to have an answer. And I want to rub it in my hospital's face. I got a letter from my insurance company saying that two days into my stay, the stay was deemed medically unnecessary by the doctors there so they won't be covering the stay. Ooooh boy, are they gonna get it. I KNEW there was something wrong!

Girl you deserve a break soon! Sending healing vibes your way.

Wow that's quite a story. I can't imagine how you ended out with giardia, but I'm so glad they figured it out. I can't understand how the hospital can deny your stay even if they found NOTHING wrong....isn't that the point of going to the hospital when you are sick. I hope the medicine works quickly and you get better soon!

Do you know if the stomach bug in your family was all caused by the Giardia? I would think the health dept. would have checked your water supply or that of some place your family was exposed to, such as a pool. An aunt of mine got this years ago because she had been away from home and didn't know a boil order was imposed in her neighborhood after a water line break.

I just read about giardia in Colorado yesterday when I was responding to SciFiGal. All of the municipal water should be fine, but the advisory I read noted that with small kids around, adults can get giardia from them because they touch everything, including streams and dirt etc. I'll bet that's what happened here.

Hope you are better soon!  I went to the ER one time and they told me I had the flu & gave me a shot in the butt.  Four days later I had 18 inches of my small intestines removed from an abscessed fistula.  After surgery I told the doc to go down to the ER and set them straight - it was NOT the flu!

Thanks guys. I swear I didn't drink any bad water! Lol, I haven't even been near a camping site or a lake all summer. The health department people think that it was perhaps someone who had it who didn't have symptoms spreading it. My mom said the stomach bug was going through the entire elementary school, so we think the bug really was a bug. My husband and baby are totally fine now, they were after a day or two.

I finally got meds last night - I refused to take a course of Flagyl, so they had me do a one-shot-dose of a different antibiotic. I swear, if this messes up my lovely FMT and I get c. diff. again, I'm going to kill someone (ok, not really, but I'd be upset!). This is my 3rd antibiotic in 3 months (August - UTI, September - sinus infection, Oct - parasites). I'm popping Florastor like crazy.