Shelley, Even us seasoned CD parents get wound up when things start snowballing! I hope you don't mind but I giggled with you! Sense of Humor helps to get you through the Messes in Life! Although some DAYS...Ok on to the answer to your ? !
It depends on the Hospital. My son goes to Hershey, but we usually do most of the tests at our home town hospital. It's much much smaller but they still have results to us within a day. Sometimes within hours. How ever our Dr's say once you have had a positive result yours will always have one. I think some way they know when it's in ACTIVE faze & the counts are much higher. I will have to look into this more as I am not totally sure. But he did have the C-Diff test several times after & somehow they were able to know if he was sick or not with it again.
Keep in touch! I hope results get back to you quickly! Julz
P.S. I did some digging & found this on "Lab Test Online"
Maybe this is overkill again but I found some of this info. very useful. Sometime we forget some important notes when it comes to testing. I underlined each ? they had. So you can read what you want to & skip the others.
How is it used?
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Clostridium difficile toxin tests are used to diagnose antibiotic-associated diarrhea and other conditions and complications caused by toxin-producing C. difficile. Conditions resulting from this infection include pseudomembranous colitis, in which dead tissue, fibrous protein, and numerous white blood cells form a lining over the surface of the inflamed bowel, toxic megacolon, and perforated bowel. Testing may also be ordered to detect recurrent disease.
There are a number of tests that are available to detect the infection and to determine if the strain that is present produces toxin. Some tests are very sensitive but take some days to complete, while other tests are rapid (several hours) but are not considered to be very sensitive or specific. Therefore, a combination of tests may be used to help make a diagnosis. Some of the commonly used tests include:
C. difficile toxin B, or toxins A and B, by enzyme immunoassay (EIA) tests are some of the most common tests used by laboratories. Results are typically available within 1 to 4 hours. Though these tests are rapid and widely available, they are not sensitive enough to detect many infections; they miss up to 30% of cases. Therefore, they are not recommended for use by some professional organizations.
A glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) test detects an antigen that is produced in high amounts by C. difficile, both toxin and non-toxin producing strains. It may be used as a first step to rule out an infection with C. difficile, but it should not be used alone. Since it is not very specific for toxin-producing C. difficile, it is often used in combination with a test for toxin by EIA or a cytotoxicity culture.
Tissue culture to detect the C. difficile toxin is a test that looks for the effects of the cytotoxin on human cells grown in culture. It is a more sensitive method to detect toxin, but it requires 24 to 48 hours to get the test result.
A relatively new molecular PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test can rapidly detect the C. difficile toxin B gene (tcdB) in a stool sample. This test is sensitive but is not widely available.
Toxigenic stool culture, which requires growing the bacteria in a culture and detecting the presence of the toxins, is the most sensitive test for C. difficile, and it is still considered to be the gold standard. However, it can take 2 to 3 days for results. A culture will also not distinguish between C. difficile colonization and overgrowth/infection.
Currently, there is no one test that is rapid, widely available, and sufficiently sensitive and specific. Until the development of such a test, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recommend a two-step testing process:
Perform an initial screen on stool samples using a test for glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH). This test is considered to be very sensitive.
Follow up positive screening results with a specific test for the toxin or the gene that codes for the toxin.
When is it ordered?
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Tests for C. difficile toxin may be ordered when a hospitalized patient has frequent watery stools, abdominal pain, fever, and/or nausea during or following a course of antibiotics or following a recent gastrointestinal surgery. It may be ordered when someone develops these symptoms within 6-8 weeks after taking antibiotics, several days after chemotherapy, or when a person has a chronic gastrointestinal disorder that the doctor suspects is being worsened by a C. difficile infection. Tests for C. difficile toxin may be ordered to help diagnose the cause of diarrhea when no other discernable cause (such as parasites or pathogenic bacteria) has been detected.
When a person treated for antibiotic-associated diarrhea or colitis relapses and symptoms re-emerge, C. difficile toxin testing may be ordered to confirm the presence of the toxin. Testing should not be ordered to monitor the effectiveness of treatment or on those who are symptomatic. A subsiding of symptoms (diarrhea ceases and stools are formed) indicates a cure from infection.
What does the test result mean?
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If tests for C. difficile toxin are positive, it is likely that the person's diarrhea and related symptoms are due to an overgrowth of toxin-producing C. difficile.
Negative test results may mean that the diarrhea and other symptoms are being caused by something other than C. difficile. Since the toxin breaks down at room temperature within 2 hours, a negative result may also indicate that the sample was not transported, stored, or processed promptly. If there is a concern that a stool specimen has not been collected and processed properly, a repeat test may be performed.
Is there anything else I should know?
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If a person has positive C. difficile test results, the doctor will typically discontinue any antibiotics that the person is taking and prescribe an appropriate treatment of oral antibiotic, such as metronidazole or vancomycin, to eliminate the C. difficile bacteria.
An endoscopic procedure can be used to diagnose C. difficile colitis. A specialist (gastroenterologist) can examine the colon and biopsy any characteristic pseudomembranous lesions that may be present.
