Warning Signs Of A C. Difficile Infection

Weight Loss

The average healthy adult has between twenty and forty liters of water in their body at any given time. The mass of water is around two pounds per liter, making between forty and eighty pounds of an individual's body mass to be water weight. Water is lost from the body in several ways, including excessive urination, excessive sweating, and watery stools. A healthy individual only loses a fifth of a liter of fluid per day through the excretion of stool. An individual affected by a C. difficile infection has diarrhea between ten and fifteen times a day on average. This can equate to a loss of over ten pounds of body mass over just a few days. In addition, calories and glucose that healthy cells use to produce energy are also being used by the C. difficile bacteria that have colonized in an affected individual's large intestine. This mechanism causes the perpetuation of weight loss because the bacteria can cause an individual to have a negative energy balance.

Rapid Heart Rate

The abnormal amount of stool excretion in a patient with a C. difficile infection causes a significant net loss of water from their body. When water is lost from an individual's bloodstream, the overall blood volume is reduced. Reduced blood volume can cause a decrease in cardiac output, the quantity of oxygenated blood being pumped out of the heart. The body has a mechanism in place that helps ensure proper oxygenated blood flow to all parts of the body when the blood volume is low. The kidneys do their best to retain any fluid they can, which means patients will urinate less. If this mechanism is not effective at increasing an affected individual's blood volume, the brain speeds up the respiration and heart rate to compensate. A rapid heart rate is seen in any individual who has become dehydrated, regardless of the cause.