Should You Sometimes Say NO to Antibiotics?

So why haven't most of us ever heard of it?

Diane Henry takes care of other people.

But for weeks last year, she could barely do anything.

Diane says she "started experiencing severe stomach pain, but ignored it."

Finally her symptoms were so alarming, her mother forced her to go to the hospital.

"I had bloody diarrhea, weak, tired, just exhausted. I ended up staying there 30 days," Diane says.

Her recovery will last months longer.

Diane says, "They removed five feet of my colon."

It was all because of an infection called c diff.

"I had never heard of it," Diane says.

But scientists have been in a pitched battle against c diff since discovering its effects thirty years ago.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Dale Gerding says it's
"very difficult to remove and extremely difficult to kill."

Dr. Gerding describes it as a bulletproof bug, because the toxic spores it releases can live on lab surfaces for six months.

And in just over a decade, c diff infections have risen dramatically, and become far more lethal.

As Dr. Gerding explains, "We have an epidemic strain circulating now. Patients are going into shock, they are unable to fight off the disease; they are dying precipitously."

Experts say, in the greatest of ironies, you're most likely to be infected if you've taken a medication that changed medical history and saved millions of lives.

Dr. Gerding says, "This is a real antibiotic side effect."

That's because antibiotics attack bacteria indiscriminately, including the good kind that's so crucial to human health.

Dr. Gerding explains, "In the process of taking antibiotics you disrupt the normal protective bacteria in the gut. If that happens, and you ingest c diff, then c diff is able to establish itself."

That's why Dr. Ken Lee will not prescribe antibiotics unless it's absolutely necessary.

He says, "We're not going to use an antibiotic because at this point she wouldn't benefit."

Dr. Lee, who's also Diane's doctor, says outside of a hospital setting, c diff is still uncommon. But he's seeing an increase in cases like Diane's.

For her, antibiotics were unavoidable because of chronic sinus infections.

But c diff experts say for millions of americans who insist on antibiotics -- they're not helpful or necessary and patients shouldn't do it.

Today, Diane is learning how to eat again, without her large intestine.

She still respects the healing powers of antibiotics. But she says too few people know of their dark side.

"People need to understand there is a consequence, how dangerous they can be."