GI Follow-up

Annie saw her GI doctor today to follow-up since her hospitalization.  He will be following her pretty closely this next year since, as he said, long-term antibiotics can really wreak havoc on your GI tract.

But Annie is starting this long process with a healthy colon.  She's been on her regular ulcerative colitis medication for several years now without any flare-ups.  She's on a dose of probiotics that is triple what an adult would take, in order to get lots of good bacteria back in her GI tract, (since her IV antibiotics are so broad-spectrum and will kill off everything, good and bad).  And she is also on oral vancomycin to help prevent the development of c-diff that is caused by long-term antibiotic use. 

Annie has had c-diff before after an 18 month course of antibiotics 3 years ago.  She was hospitalized for 6 weeks and very, very ill for several months.  So hopefully, this time around, she is starting this long-term round of antibiotics off on a better foot.

The GI doctor will repeat her calprotectin test in a month to monitor the affect the antibiotics are having on inflammation in her colon.  He's great at wanting to stay on top of things before they get bad, so we feel good about how closely he will be following her this next year.