hi i would think if he had cdiff being on antibiotics would make him even worse and test would not come back neg. all antibiotics work against getting rid of cdiff ..infactt they can cause it to flare up only vanco or flagel work on cdiff ..

boysmom what has been sons diagnosis in past? appears cdiff not the case..high frequency often pouchitis ,sibo as we found out from others experience..

I believe the c- diff test was valid. His cal protectin had gone up and now back down again. Trying to understand what made it go up.

Fecal calprotectin is supposed to be useful in helping with IBD screening and for monitoring of treatment without the need for repeated endoscopies. However, it is not specific to any particular type of inflammation other than GI. So, it could be any number of things. He could have relapsing pouchitis, Crohn's, or other possible reasons for inflammation. The fact that it went up and down would lead me to believe it is more likely an IBD type inflammation, rather than an infection, which common sense would indicate that it would go up and stay up.

What does his doctor say about this? Sometimes we get excited about lab value fluctuations, but it turns out to be within the expected range. Not saying that is the case here, but just wondering.

Of course, that is just me thinking out loud, and not with any sort of special insight. I did find this interesting article (but, you've probably already read it).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520167/

Jan

From what I remember there are 2 types of Cdiff diagnostic tests.

One of them is a PCR test and is incredibly accurate, 99% or something.

If you're interested you many want to ask what type of test was used.

Dan