Jackie from Torrence, CA – What to do when a family member contracts C. Diff? I’ve read that the affected person can shed spores for months to years. How long do I need to bleach everything down? What procedures and products are recommended?
C.diff (clostridium difficile) is tough to kill and it can spread in the home, but bleach-based cleaning, handwashing, and washing your laundry super hot are a good start.
Hi Jackie, Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns. I can imagine this is a scary time where you want to help your family member, and ensure they feel comfortable at home, but also keep the rest of the family safe.
C. diff (Clostridium difficile) is a germ carried in our digestive tracts that can cause severe diarrhea and dehydration. It is much more dangerous than the common viral “stomach flu” or short term tummy upset. Since C. diff is spread from the fecal to oral route (ie. from poop to the mouth), the most important thing is hand hygiene. Everyone should wash wash wash their hands with soap and water after every trip to the bathroom, and before eating or preparing food. Remember during the pandemic when we talked about singing Happy Birthday while you wash your hands to ensure you wash for long enough? This is a great time to bring that back. Unfortunately alcohol hand sanitizer is not helpful in this situation. The alcohol is not strong enough to kill C. diff so you have to use soap and plenty of water to wash it away.
It is important to clean the bathroom with bleach products. If it is possible for your family member to use a separate bathroom from the rest of the family, that would be ideal. In either case, you can use home bleach (what you find at the grocery store) in a 1:10 dilution. This means 1 part bleach for every 10 parts water. It’s not helpful to mix up a large batch as the bleach can degrade a bit over time. It is better to just mix a bit up each day, so for example, ¼ cup bleach with 2 ½ cups water in a spray bottle each morning. (Here is a great calculator if you need help creating your bleach mix). Make sure to use gloves, and have good ventilation, when using bleach based products. Your family members’ sheets, towels and clothes should be washed separately from the rest of your laundry, on the hottest setting possible.
There are no clear guidelines on how long to do this cleaning routine, and that is frustrating. You are correct that C diff spores can be shed from the infected person for a long time, and can live on surfaces for months. We usually consider someone to be infectious until at least 48 hours after their diarrhea stops. That is the most important period of time for isolation and cleaning precautions. Beyond that, there are no clear guidelines on how long to keep cleaning. Since 10% of patients have a relapse in the first 2-8 weeks, I think keeping up the bathroom cleaning and laundry routine for at least one month would be reasonable. Hand washing is something we should all be doing anyway!
What’s sometimes hard to wrap our heads around is that about 10-15% of the population is walking around with some amount of C diff in their bodies, but are not infected or sick because their healthy immune systems are taking care of it. Those who get sick with C diff often have other risk factors like age, immune deficiencies, recent hospitalization or other health problems. So even if someone in your house comes in contact with C diff, they will not necessarily get sick. That’s not to say you can ignore the cleaning routine! But hopefully to give you a bit of peace of mind that no one is perfect and you are doing your best.
Thank you so much for your question! It is always our pleasure to provide evidence based support.
Sending you much Nerdy love and strength during this time.
Center for Disease Control – Preventing the Spread of C diff at home [archived link]
Center for Disease Control (CDC) – How to Help Your Loved One [archived link]
