• Welcome to Crohn's Forum, a support group for people with all forms of IBD. While this community is not a substitute for doctor's advice and we cannot treat or diagnose, we find being able to communicate with others who have IBD is invaluable as we navigate our struggles and celebrate our successes. We invite you to join us.

FECAL TRANSPLANTS: A Guide

Hi all,

I think I am going to give this a shot - maybe DIY style at home.

I've had Crohn's Colitis for 32 years. Originally, I was diagnosed with UC but that was changed to Crohn's when I got fistulae 8 years ago. Not doing too bad at the moment but would love to be able to eat what I wanted or even have a glass (bottle) of wine. Not to mention that recent stresses have exacerbated things.

I have two potential donors - my lovely wife (I asked and she said she's up for it) and my two and a 1/2 year old daughter (I asked and she said 'Peppa pig' which I am taking as a resounding yes).

Which of these two potential donors do you think would be a better fit?

Thanks

Nick
 
Nick, good luck on th DIY FMT. I have heard young children up to age 4 don't have enough good microbes developed to be a viable donor. That leaves your lovely wife:) Has she had testing done to rule out any unwanted viruses? When I became a donor for my daughter, I was tested for hep.c, h pylori, c diff etc.
My donor stool got rid of my daughter's CDiff.but she didn't do enough of them to affect her UC. She is trying LDN and having good results and I am making kefir for her. Next she will add fermented cabbage which is supposed to have trillions of good bacteria.
 
Hi all,

I think I am going to give this a shot - maybe DIY style at home.

I've had Crohn's Colitis for 32 years. Originally, I was diagnosed with UC but that was changed to Crohn's when I got fistulae 8 years ago. Not doing too bad at the moment but would love to be able to eat what I wanted or even have a glass (bottle) of wine. Not to mention that recent stresses have exacerbated things.

I have two potential donors - my lovely wife (I asked and she said she's up for it) and my two and a 1/2 year old daughter (I asked and she said 'Peppa pig' which I am taking as a resounding yes).

Which of these two potential donors do you think would be a better fit?

Thanks

Nick

Do not use your young daughter use your wife.

Do not mix the saline and stool together in a blender, put it into a freezer bag and close it off with some paper clamps. Try to get all the air bubbles out, this will create an oxygen free environment which will protect the bacteria from dieing. after mixing for a while this should encourage the bacteria to form spores after that they can be exposed to oxygen. it is the seperation of the bacteria from any nutrients which will be a signal for which the bacteria will form spores.


If you choose to use a blender use a low setting and blend as least as possible and do the enema within 10 minutes of mixing, as after that 90% of the bacteria may already be dead and the potency of the enema will be weak.

Good luck!!
 

Spooky1

Well-known member
Location
South Northants
Does anyone know where I can get this done in the UK as I don't have healthy relatives and I don't fancy doing home DIY stuff either. But the info is so promising, Thanks Bill.
 

Spooky1

Well-known member
Location
South Northants
Ah yes, I remember visiting their site. They say it can take up to six treatments and cost a fortune each time. I couldn't help but think that they want to milk people for what they're worth. They charge from £3,000 to £16,000. A lot of the info you have posted with links, Bill, gives great success. They don't suggest they need a huge amount of treatments which gets me thinking they are in it for mass profit. I often have C-diff (usually after visiting gastroenterology) and its a sod on top of Crohns. Am gonna have to beg the NHS to get on with it for free. Don't think big pharma like this one.
 

Spooky1

Well-known member
Location
South Northants
gosh, this does look good! I feel, other than trying medical marijuana, that this might just help knock my Crohns, with all the other things like C-diff, Rotavirus, etc, on the head. I just need to be able to get on with life as i'm not getting any younger. Thanks, Bill.

P.S I wonder if they have crowdfunding by kickstarter?
 
“Messieurs, c'est les microbes qui auront le dernier mot." (Gentlemen, it is the microbes who will have the last word.)”

― Louis Pasteur - "father of microbiology"
 
Is there any evidence to suggest that the presence of mesalamine would inhibit, enhance, or have no effect on the establishment of a newly introduced microbiome?
 
Is there any evidence to suggest that the presence of mesalamine would inhibit, enhance, or have no effect on the establishment of a newly introduced microbiome?
The more suppressed the inflammation is or rather the more controlled ones disease is,the more likely the transplant will take hold and new bacteria will restablish themselves. one reason for this is that one way pathogens are able to dominate in the intestines is because of the by products of inflammation nitrate and nitrite which feed mainly bad bacteria.


Host-derived nitrate boosts growth of E. coli in the inflamed gut. Feb 2013
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23393266

There are other mechanisms which allow pathogens to thrive, such as the overall concept of colonization resistance provided by an intact intestinal microbiome. This is a bit seperate from just byproducts of chronic inflammation. There is also the possibility that missing bacteria do not utilize sugars that some bacteria create, this would now provide a new niche for other species to feed on.


As for the substance mesalamine, I'm not aware of it having and negative effect on bacteria itself, but if it is helping to suppress inflammatory response then we can assume/theorize it may only help a fecal transplant rather then hurt.
 
Well iv just had my second day of FMT, yesterday was the scope infusion, found mild inflammation in a few parts of the large intestine, had the enema infusion today, was a mild bit of a mental challenge but actually quite easy now that it's done, 3 more days of it. (Five in total) I'm going to try stick to a strict real food diet to maximise my chances of success. Fingers crossed this works for me. Will keep you all posted and update about the full procedure.
 
I'm in aus, doing it at prof. Borody's clinic, thank you for your well wishes!
Feel free to share all the details!! such as:

did they supply a donor or did you bring your own?

you mentioned the first treatment was infusion of donor stool through a gastroscope/colonoscopy? is that correct?

are you doing 4 more days of enemas?
 
Using their donors, they screen them meticulously, been on rifaximin and flagyl for a while, ceased just before the scope/1st infusion, have 3 more days of infusions via enema, havnt had a bm since the morning of b4 the infusion though because they give you immodium so the new bacteria stays in there for a while and takes ahold in its new host.. Stomachs pretty sore but that's probably because Iv been so constipated, will keep you updated w symptom improvements etc hoping it works.
 
Well apparently cure/ prolonged remission rate is 1 in 30 for crohns, so I have my fingers crossed and have said my prayers haha.. Time will tell
 
Joshuaaa, I hope this is your miracle treatment. Please keep us posted on your progress. Wishing you much luck and ongoing remission. Dr Borody is a brilliant man.
 
Well apparently cure/ prolonged remission rate is 1 in 30 for crohns, so I have my fingers crossed and have said my prayers haha.. Time will tell
I see that you had some pretty powerful antibiotics before the FMT, presumably to knock out large numbers of your existing microbiome. Do you know if antibiotics are used in the protocol for UC (as opposed to CD) in Dr. Borody's clinic?

Those are pretty long odds, but I hope you are the one! Talking of odds, do you know what the success rate is for prolonged remission in UC at that clinic?

Five infusions? That doesn't seem like many. Does the patient choose the number based on how much they want to spend?
 
I see that you had some pretty powerful antibiotics before the FMT, presumably to knock out large numbers of your existing microbiome. Do you know if antibiotics are used in the protocol for UC (as opposed to CD) in Dr. Borody's clinic?

Those are pretty long odds, but I hope you are the one! Talking of odds, do you know what the success rate is for prolonged remission in UC at that clinic?

Five infusions? That doesn't seem like many. Does the patient choose the number based on how much they want to spend?
Sorry I meant to press quote but I'm on my phone, first, just want to say thanks to all of you for your well wishes. Ok, so it is quite costly for 5 days but even 1 in 30 is worth it for me, my crohns isn't that bad so it might raise my chances a bit. The antibiotics are the same for UC prep, and the success rate is quite a bit higher for UC. The reason I actually decided to do FMT is because when I saw Prof B the first time I was in complete remission, which was weird because one month prior I was in another hospital w a flare up... Could very well have been remicade that hid the disease as I still didn't feel right.. Could also have been the large amount of cannabis extract I ate (not recommending it as it gave me a panic attack and I can't smoke it anymore coz of the said anxiety it causes.. Anyway long story short, my diagnosis was elusive they've thought some sort of IBD chronic colitis but weren't sure what it was because the patterns have changed w various scopes so he thought I'd be a good candidate for FMT. However on the last scope the skip lesions looked like crohns and a diagnosis is made on what you see so the histology doesn't really come into it here. Moving forward he said had we known this before the FMT we woulda gone straight onto anti-map treatment, but the way I see it is I'm doing the process of elimination, if my disease is caused by a disbiosis then this thing will fix me up, if it's caused by some unknown pathogen this thing will also likely fix me up, if it's not then the chances that it's caused by map go up even higher which means anti-map is the way to go.

Sorry for the essay, just needed to put out where I am.
 
Sorry I meant to press quote but I'm on my phone, first, just want to say thanks to all of you for your well wishes. Ok, so it is quite costly for 5 days but even 1 in 30 is worth it for me, my crohns isn't that bad so it might raise my chances a bit. The antibiotics are the same for UC prep, and the success rate is quite a bit higher for UC. The reason I actually decided to do FMT is because when I saw Prof B the first time I was in complete remission, which was weird because one month prior I was in another hospital w a flare up... Could very well have been remicade that hid the disease as I still didn't feel right.. Could also have been the large amount of cannabis extract I ate (not recommending it as it gave me a panic attack and I can't smoke it anymore coz of the said anxiety it causes.. Anyway long story short, my diagnosis was elusive they've thought some sort of IBD chronic colitis but weren't sure what it was because the patterns have changed w various scopes so he thought I'd be a good candidate for FMT. However on the last scope the skip lesions looked like crohns and a diagnosis is made on what you see so the histology doesn't really come into it here. Moving forward he said had we known this before the FMT we woulda gone straight onto anti-map treatment, but the way I see it is I'm doing the process of elimination, if my disease is caused by a disbiosis then this thing will fix me up, if it's caused by some unknown pathogen this thing will also likely fix me up, if it's not then the chances that it's caused by map go up even higher which means anti-map is the way to go.

Sorry for the essay, just needed to put out where I am.
joshuaa, thanks for the update and i hope all goes well. If you have the chance, ask someone at the clinic or Borody himself why they are not using FMT pills or nasogastric tube yet for crohn's? It would very interesting to hear what they are thinking.
 
Pills will be used soon I think as a maintenance procedure in people who respond to FMT, as for NG tube as far as I know, risk of complications is higher with NG tube and colonoscope delivery is supposed to be the best method. I'll keep you guys updated as I go, apparently it can take a while to get the full benefits of FMT, the bacteria has to adapt to you and take place etc.. I'm hopeful, like I said by process of elimination I feel like I'll get this thing conquered one way or the other, it's important to realise the unknowns in IBD are vast, a diagnosis of cd is made from the appearance of skip lesions of inflammation, what causes that inflammation in person a) is entirely possible to be different to what causes it in person b) but that being said with all the research that's been done IMO there are 3 potential culprits, 1) map, 2) AEIC 3) unknown pathogen caused by a disbiosis, so ATM I'm tackling no.3 with hopes I'll be successful, if not I've narrowed down the list of suspects even further.
 
An update, unfortunately I had to start pred again yesterday, it seems I wasn't the lucky 1 in 30, but hey I woulda kicked myself wondering "what if" if I hadn't of tried it. However I gotta say on the days of receiving the FMT enemas I felt remarkably better, unfortunately it's way too much of a mission to do every single day. One would think capsules could be some sort of solution to this the only problem being amount, you'd need a shit load of capsules (no pun intended ;p), and they'd have to be freshly supplied making it quite an effort. Do I still think there's hope for FMT in cd? If if works in even
1 in 30 yeah it's worth a shot, but it doesn't seem to be a hard and fast cure for the majority of cd patients, unless you can continue w it for maybe a month straight every other day I think it'd be enough to put you in remission, but like I said it's quite an ordeal to go through...
 

Spooky1

Well-known member
Location
South Northants
So, Joshua, how many transplants did you have in the end? Obviously if you're straight back on pred then things must have been bad. So no real effect then? Have you had any resections of intestine? Just wondering. I think you saved me a long trip and a load of money too. I'm very sad that it didn't work for you. Well done for going through the procedure though.
 
I had five all up, one during the scope, four retention enemas (not fun for any man to endure). Iv never had any resections, disease has always been in the sigmoid area now it's in the descending colon also, no disease in the small intestine. Iv been prescribed anti-map but I'm going to try go back on remicade before I commit to two years minimum of anti biotics, sad thing is I was in 100% histological remission during my scope in feb (probably from the remicade) that they thought it was probably some sort of chronic colitis rather than CD, hence going on the FMT.. Thing is I never felt like I was in remission even while the scope suggested otherwise, hence the trip to the CDD in the first place. It's been a long expensive endeavour and I kinda feel like I'm back in square one, though at least iv replaced some good bacteria and I guess I'd always wonder what if, if I hadn't of given it a shot.

What's your current state spooky? Med/disease history etc
 

Spooky1

Well-known member
Location
South Northants
Thanks for the info Joshua. It must be disappointing to have it fail, not to mention that in February you were fine. I understand what you're saying about not feeling well despite no indication. I'm wondering if you have arthritis at all. This shows up in the blood and can make you feel very poorly. But its not from bowel disease. In a way it's good the remicade might have been what helped. Two years of anti biotics is amazing! I'm not sure many go on that dose. Anti biotics send me to the loo far more.

I've had crohns for 40 years. Never really goes into remission unfortunately. I've given up on surgeries because the disease comes back within weeks at the point of the joined intestine. I also have it in the mouth and through stomach and duodenum. I also have gastric dumping syndrome. I have a liquid feed 20 hours a day through a PEG. It's liquid in and liquid out too. Possibly due to amount of intestine removed. I too feel very poorly most of the time. Loo visits are ongoing day and night. I just wish there was a cure.
Cos I couldn't afford the FMT I've decided to try high dose probiotics. I'm on immuprobio, its 50billion good bacteria per capsule. Rather expensive too. Not had much effect yet. I spoke to my dietician about it and she said her last hospital did a trials of VSL# which has 450billion good bacteria. It was only on IBS people not IBD patients. they did a double blind trial and found it did nothing. But i'm going to try for 3 months just to get some good gut flora in my intestine. I also have colesevelam as an anti diarrhoea med. Doesn't help much and gripes a bit too. I also buy cheap immodium from the supermarket. These together do gripe a lot and do sometimes help reduce loo visits. If the gastric dumping is bad then absolutely everything dashes through, including loads of bile which rips the skin off my butt, burns the skin right off and continues to burn. loads of barrier cream helps (cavilon).
I hope you find remission with something, pred, remicade.
 
Ah boy, it sounds like you've been through the absolute ringer, have you done much research into MAP as a cause of CD, or AIEC? The reason I ask is because for those who have tried absolutely everything under the sun those are the two things I would recommend looking at, Qu biologics is currently doing a trial for their SSI vaccine which has the genius mechanism of addressing macrophage deficiency, (which more and more evidence is looking like that May be the underlying cause to crohns), anyway it's still early days with that but I can honestly say iv never seen any results as good as their compassionate use program (granted it only had 10 ppl in it), hence the need for them to do the trial now. As for anti-map now that is the cocktail of antibiotics aimed at killing or suppressing the mycobacterium believed to cause Crohn's disease, (it's actually been proven to be the cause of a subset of crohns, I don't have the numbers, some say 50% recent papers have suggested 80%) there are threads for both treatments. I'm sorry you've had to suffer with disease for so long, that truly does suck. Are you on any psychological meds to help you cope?
 
But I have to mention, given that you have it in so many places it certainly sounds infection based... I'm on my phone so I can't link you to the MAP thread but please search for it..
 
Joshuaaa, I'm sorry to hear that FMT wasn't a cure for you! Have you tried LDN? It seems to benefit people with UC and crohns. Also you mentioned Cannibis oil, have you used a strain with all CBD and very low THC? It causes no high and may not cause anxiety.
The other thing that comes to mind is getting a blood test, Prometheus, to get a more conclusive UC/ crohns diagnosis. My daughter had the same skip pattern and the GIs were talking crohns but the blood test markers were all UC. It's expensive but they have a sliding scale payment.
 
joshuaaa, do you know any more details about the protocol they followed? you already mentioned there was antibiotics before the FMT, and the first infusion was through the colonoscope/endoscope followed by 4 days of enemas. Were the enemas from fresh stool or frozen stool? I remember that borody didnt make any attempts to mix the fmt solution in an anaerobic environment, did he since change his methods?The issue is this-

Current Microbiology
July 1989, Volume 19, Issue 1, pp 39-43
Oxygen tolerance of anaerobic bacteria isolated from human feces
Tullio Brusa, Enrica Canzi, Novella Pacini, Raffaella Zanchi, Professor Annamaria Ferrari

Abstract
The large bowel intestinal flora of mammals is made up mostly of O2-intolerant anaerobic microorganisms which are irreversibly damaged by brief exposure to air. The aim of our work was to investigate the effect of atmospheric O2 on human intestinal anaerobic microorganisms. Thirty O2-intolerant bacterial strains that reached 100% mortality after 120 min of air exposure were isolated. Ten of these strains were tested for their atmospheric O2 sensitivity as a function of air exposure time; all tested microorganisms showed a similar mortality trend on exposure to air. In fact, 50% of cells survive, on the average, after 4–5 min of atmospheric O2; this percentage decreases to 3–5% after only 20 min, and after 40 min only one cell in a thousand survives; all strains reached 100% mortality in a time range of 100–120 min. The strains examined were identified as belonging to the genera Eubacterium, Peptostreptococcus, and Coprococcus.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01568901


So basically after 20 minutes after being exposed to oxygen 95-97% of the bacteria are all dead. if it's administered within 4-5 minutes you would probably be ok but still 50% are already dead. Coordinating all this with a donor, patient and doctor must be real tough, its easy to assume that many times, they cannot plan this out perfectly. these are just some of the issues with the protocols that need to be addressed. maybe they solved these problems i don't know hopefully you have more info to share with us, that would be great.you have already done alot by sharing your experiance though and I appreciate it!!
 
Yep it was fresh not frozen, he's well aware of the effects of exposing the bacteria to oxygen they take every caution, they've been doing this for the last 25 years, each time trying to perfect the process, he will openly tell you before you go in he doesn't know how or why it works in some people, the thought is that if your inflammation is being caused by an unknown species of pathogenic bacteria, maybe multiple then the new bacteria acts as a potent anti biotic and kills those pathogenic bacteria, hence we see some instant dramatic improvement in some people.

I think however, if ones problem goes beyond the bacteria in the gut, and moreover is to do with an immune deficiency, I.e faulty macrophages or intracellular MAP infection, you're not going to see the benefits from FMT... Never know if you don't try though.
 
Yep it was fresh not frozen, he's well aware of the effects of exposing the bacteria to oxygen they take every caution, they've been doing this for the last 25 years, each time trying to perfect the process, he will openly tell you before you go in he doesn't know how or why it works in some people, the thought is that if your inflammation is being caused by an unknown species of pathogenic bacteria, maybe multiple then the new bacteria acts as a potent anti biotic and kills those pathogenic bacteria, hence we see some instant dramatic improvement in some people.

I think however, if ones problem goes beyond the bacteria in the gut, and moreover is to do with an immune deficiency, I.e faulty macrophages or intracellular MAP infection, you're not going to see the benefits from FMT... Never know if you don't try though.
thanks joshuaaa, I was hoping you could be more precise about what it is exactly and precisely they do though. I could assume he would know 99% of the bacteria in the gi tract are extremely oxygen sensitive, but when doing science, we have to make as few or little assumptions as possible, so I'm searching for knowledge on what he is doing with a high degree of certainty. So I want to go a little beyond just making that assumption. It's ok though if you didn't really observe every detail of the process.

We may be laymen here on a website independent of the highly trained world of acedemia, but it is my goal to hold myself to a similar standard, or at least try my best. So lets for a moment assume every precaution was taken to preseve the donors stool from oxygen, then my nexts best guess to explain such variability in results would be the ph of the donors stool, as some of the bacteria we need are highly sensitive to ph fluctuations. PH can be positively affected by the donors diet days prior to sample collection. But there going to be a limit to what I can EVER know without throwing myself back in school to be apart of the research myself!! haha.

So glad you went to borody's clinic to do this, it was definitely worth a shot and may be worth another shot as well. Its truly just the beginning of a new science, we have only recently (perhaps a decade) applied DNA techniques to reveal the secrets of the world of bacteria, and only 2 years since mapping the microbiome. FDA clinical trials on Fecal Transplants began this year 2014 so yea this is the beginning, You are a leader and a pioneer in scientific medicine Joshuaaa.
 
Here is a Recent paper released discussing the variability in results of fecal transplants, or why its efficacy is sometimes dramatic and other times slow going or takes no effect at all. Finally they talk about donor stool quality as a variable to efficacy, something i have been waiting for people to address more.

My own thoughts are we are not trying to control all the variables that exist such as donor diet or patient diet, so we don't know how that may affect the outcomes. Hopefully some researchers will try to examine this in the coming years, but at least they talk about it a little bit here. the quantitys of bacteria in stool can vary from one donor to another, and one sample to another in the same donor, so the potency can vary quite a bit.

http://journals.lww.com/jcge/Fullte...Disease_Ready_for_Fecal_Microbiota.6.aspx#R12
 
Last edited:
I found two new studies for Fecal Transplants in Crohn's disease, that will total 15 studies planned in the U.S and around the world. Momentum is still going strong for this treatment, so hang in there!! A few have been completed already but I don't recall which ones. Whats great is i think we have enough suggestive evidence to keep things moving, so things aren't going to slow down anytime soon, and are more likely to pick up with more studies to come.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show...+ibd&rcv_s=01/01/2014&rcv_e=08/08/2014&rank=6

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show...+ibd&rcv_s=01/01/2014&rcv_e=08/08/2014&rank=1
 
This is an execerpt from a book called "Think Like a Freak" by Levitt and Dubner (earlier books "Freakonomics" and "Super Freakonomics"). None of these books are medical in nature, they simply view problems through data rather than dogma.

Borody and FMT come near the end.

The point of this quote is that this comes from a NY Times top selling book...the word is getting out into the general media.

You might think that medicine, with such strong doese of science and logic, is on field in which root cases are always well understood.

Alas, you would be wrong. The human body is a complex, dynamic system about which a great deal remans unknown. Writing as recently as 1997, the medical historian Roy Poerter put it this way: "We live in an age of science, but science has not eliminated fantasies about health; the stigmas of sickness, the moral meanings of medicine continue." As a result, gut huncheas are routinely passed off as dogma while conventional wisdom flourishes even when there is no data to back it up.

Consider the ulcer. It is essentially a hole in your stomach or small intestine, producing a searing and surging pain. Bu the early 1980s, the acuses of an ulcer were said to be definitively known: they were inherited or caused by psychological stress anspicy food, either of which could produce an overabundance of stomach acid. To anyone who has ever eaten a pile of jalapenos, this seams plausible. And as any doctor could attest, a patient with a bleeding ulcer was likely to be stressed out. (A doctor might just as seasily not that shooting victims tend to bleed a lot, but that doesn't mean the blood caused the gunshot.)

Since the causes of ulcers were known, so too was the treatment. Patients were advised to relax (to cut down on stress), drink milk (to soothe the stomach), and take a Zantax or Tagamet pill (to block the production of stomach acid).

How well did this work?

To put it charitably: so-so. The treatment did hel manage a patient's pain, but the condition wasn't cured. And an ulcer is more than a painful nuisance. It can easily becom fatal due to peritonitis (caused by a hole going clear through the stomach wall) or complications from bleeding. Some ulcers required major surgery, with all the attendant complications.

Although ulcer patients didn't make out so well under the standard treatment, the medical community did just fine. Millions of patients required the constant service of gastroenterologists and surgeons, while pharmaceutical companites got righ: the antacides Tagamet and Zantak were the first true blockbuster drugs, taking in more than $1 billion a year. By 1994, the global ulcer market was worth more than $8 billion.

In the past, some medical researcher might have suggested that ulcers and other stomach ailments, including cancer, had a different root cause-perhaps even bacterial. But the medical establishment was quick to point out the glaring flaw in this theory: How could bacteria possibly survive in the acidic cauldron of the stomach?

And so the ulcer-treatment juggernaut rolled on. There wasn't much of an incentive to find a cure-not, at least, by the people whose careers depended on the prevailing ulcer treatment.

Fortunately the world is more diverse than that. In 1981, a young Australian medical resident named Barry Marshall was on the hunt for a research project. He had just taken up a rotation in the gastroenterology unit at Royal Perth Hospital, where a senior pathologist had stumbled onto a mystery. As Marshall later described it: "We've got 20 patients with bacteria in their stomach, where you shouldn't have bateria living because there's too much acid." The senior doctor, Robin Warren, was looking for a young researcher to heal "find out what's wrong with these people."

The squiggly bacteria resembled a species called Campylobacter, which can cause infection in people who spend time with chickens. Were these human bacteria indeed Campylobacter? What kind of diseases might they lead to? And wy were they so concentrated among patients with gastric trouble?

Barry Marshall, as it turns out, was already familiar with Campylobacter, for his father had worked as a refrigeration engineer in a chicken-packing plant. Marshall's mother, meanwhile, was a nurse. "We use to have a lot of arguments about what was really true in medicine," he told an interviewe4r, the esteemed medical journalist Norman Swan. "She would 'know' things because they were folklore, and I would say 'That's old-fashioned. There's no basis for it in fact.' 'Yes, but people have been doing it for hundres of years, Barry.'"

Marshal was excited by the mystery he inherited. Using samples from Dr. Warren's patients, he tried to culture the squiggly bacteria in the lab. For months, he failed. But after an accident-the culture was left in the incubator three days longer than intended-it finally grew. It wasn't Campylobacter; it was a previously undiscovered bacteria, henceforth known as Helicobacter pylori.

"We cultured it from lots of people after that," Marshall recalls. "The we could say, 'We know which antibiotic kills these bacteria.' We fitured out how they could live in the stomach, and we could play around with it in the test tube, do all kinds of useful experiments.... We were not looking for the cause of ulcers. We wanted to find out what these bacteria were, and we thought it would be funt to get a nice little publication."

Marshall and Warren continued to look for this bacteria in patients who came to see them with stomach trouble. The doctors soon made a startling discovery: among 13 patients with ulcers, all 13 also had the squiggly bacteria! Was it possible that H. pylori, rather than merely showing up in these patients, was actually causing the ulcers?

Back in the lab, Marshall tried infecting some rats and pigs with H. pylori to see if they developed ulcers. They didn't. "So I said, 'I have to test it out on a human.'"

The human, Marshall decided, would be himself. He also decided not to tell anyone, even his wife or Robin Warren. First he had a biopsy taken of his stomach to make sure he didn't already have H. pylori. All clear. Then he swallowed a batch of the bacteria that he had cultured from a patient. In Marshall's mind, there wer two likely possibilities:

1. He would develop an ulcer. "And then, hallelujah, it'd be proven."
2. He wouldn't develop an ulcer. "If nothing happened, my two years of research to taht point would have been wasted."

Barry Marshall was probably the only person in human history rooting for himself to get an ulcer. If he did, he figured it would take a few years for symptoms to arise.

But just five days after he gulped down the H. pylori, Marshall began having vomiting attacks. Hallelujah! After ten days, he had another biopsy taken of his stomach, "and the bacteria were everywhere." Marshall already had gastritis and was apparently well on his way to getting an ulcer. He took an antibiotic to help wipe it out. His and Warren's investigation had proved that H. pylori was the true cause of ulcers-and, as further investigation woudl show, of stomach cancer as well. It was an astonishing breakthrough.

Granted, there was much testing to come-and an enormous pushback from the medical community. Marshall was variously ridiculed, pilloried, and ignored. Are we to seriously believe that some loopy Australian found the cause of ulcers by swallowing a batch of some bacteria that he says he discovered himself? No $8 billion industry is ever happy when its reason for being is under attach. Talk about gastric upset! An ulcer, rather than requiring a lifetime of doctor's visits and Zantac and perhaps surgery, could not be vanquished with a cheap dose of antibiotics.

It took years for the ulcer proof to fully take hold, for conventional wisdom dies hard. Even today, many people still believe that ulcers are caused by stress or spicy foods. Fortunately, doctors now know better. The medical community finally came to acknowledge that while everyone else was simply treating the symptoms of an ulcer, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren had uncovered its root cause. In 2005, the were awarded the Nobel Prize.

The ulcer discovery, stunning as it was, constitutes just one small step in a revolution that is only beginning to unfold, a revolution aimed toward finding the root cause of illness rather than simpley swatting away the symptoms.

H. pylori, it turns out, isn't some lone-wolf bacterial terrorist that managed to slip past security and invade th stomach. In recent years, enterprising scientists-aided by newly powerful computers that facilitate DNA sequencing-have learned that the human gut is home to thousands of species of microbes. Some are good, some are bad, and others are situationally good or bad, and may have yet to reveal their nature.

Just how many microbes to each of us host? By one estimate, the human body contains ten times as many microbial cells as human cells, which pust the number easily in the trillions and perhaps in the quadrillions. This "microbial cloud," as the biologist Jonathan Eisen calls it, is so vast that some scientists consider it the largest organ in the human body. And within it my lie the root of much human health...or illness.

In labs all over the world, researchers have begun to explore whether the ingredients in this sparwling microbial stew-much of which is hereditary-may be responsible for diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis and diabetes, even obesity and mental illness. Does it seem absurd to think that a given ailment that has haunted humankind for millennia may be cause by the malfunction of a micro-organism that has been merrily swimming through our intestines the whole time?

Perhaps-just as it seemed absurd to all those ulcer doctors and pharmaceutical executives that Barry Marshall knew what he was talking about.

To be sure, these are early days in microbial exploration. The gut is still a frontier-think of the ocean floor or the surface of Mars. But already the research is paying off. A handful of doctors have successfully treated patients suffering from intestinal malidies by giving them a transfusion of healthy gut bacterial.

Where to these healthy bacteria come from, and how are they sluiced into the sick person's gut? Before going further, let us offer two notes of caution:

1. If you happen to be eating as you read this, you may wish to take a break.

2. If you are reading this book many years after it was written (assuming there are still people, and they still read books), the method described below may seem barbarically primitive. In fact we hope that is the case, for ti would mean the treatment has proven valueable but that the delivery methods have improved.

Okay, so a sick person needs a transfusion of healthy gut bacteria. What is a viable source?

Doctors like Thomas Borody, and Australian gastroenterologist who drew inspiration from Barry Marshall's ulcer research, have identified one answer: human feces. Yes, it appears that the microbe-rich excrement of a healthy person may be just the medicine for a patient whose own cut bateria are infected, damaged, or incomplete. Fecal matter is obtained from a "donor" and blended into a saline mixture that, according to one Dutch gastroenterologist, looks like chocolate milk. The mixture is then transfused, often via an enema, into the gut of the patient. In recent years, doctors have found fecal transplants to be effective in wiping out intestinalinfections that antibiotics could not. In one small study, Borody claims to have used fecal transplants to effectively cure people who were suffering from ulcerative colitis-which, he says, was "previously an incurable disease."

But Borody has been going beyond mere intestinal ailments. He claims to have successfully used fecal transplants to treat patients with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. Indeed, while Borody is careful to say that much more research is needed, the list of ailments that may have a root cause living in the human gut is nearly endless.

To Borody and a small band of like-minded brethren who believe in the power of poop, we are standing at the threshold of a new era in medicine. Borody sees the benefits of fecal therapy as "equivalent to the discovery of antibiotics." But first, there is much skepticism to overcome.

"Well, the feedback is very much like Barry Marshall's," says Borody. "I was initially ostracized. Even now my colleagues avoid talking about this or meeting me at conferences. Although this is changing. I've just had a nice string of invitations to speak at national and international conferences about fecal transplantation. But the aversion is always there. It'd be much nicer if we coulde come up with a non-fecal-sounding therapy."

Indeed. One can imagine many patients being turned off by the words fecal transplant or, as researchers call it in the academic papers, "fecal microbiota transplantation." The slang used by some doctors ("shit swap") is no better. But Borody, after years of performing this procedure, believes he has finally come up with a less disturbing name.

"Yes," he says, "we call it a 'transpoosion.'"

--Book: Think Like a Freak (2014)
--Authors: Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
I hand typed this. I did not include italics. Sorry for any typos, there are probably plenty...I didn't go back an proof it.
 
Here is a very good video made by Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America on fecal transplants. Gives good info on recent studies on fecal transplants.
I don't know anything about ccfa, but I see that they are funded primarily by pharmaceutical companies: AbbVie, Actavis, Covidien, Janssen, Pfizer, Prometheus, ReddHill, Salix, Shire, Takeda.

What would happen to the revenues of these companies if there were an "H. pylori" set of breakthroughs, one for UC and one for CD?

Sorry for being skeptical, but my default is to "follow the money", and I'd say most of these companies would take a serious hit if a real cure happened to be discovered.

I'm only 20 minutes into the presentation (so far it's all fluff), but just looking at the title, I'm a little put-off by the fact that they lumped dietary change in with FMT. The former has been tweaked and tested for a hundred years and we know that it's not going to be a cure for anything.
 
I don't know anything about ccfa, but I see that they are funded primarily by pharmaceutical companies: AbbVie, Actavis, Covidien, Janssen, Pfizer, Prometheus, ReddHill, Salix, Shire, Takeda.

What would happen to the revenues of these companies if there were an "H. pylori" set of breakthroughs, one for UC and one for CD?

Sorry for being skeptical, but my default is to "follow the money", and I'd say most of these companies would take a serious hit if a real cure happened to be discovered.

I'm only 20 minutes into the presentation (so far it's all fluff), but just looking at the title, I'm a little put-off by the fact that they lumped dietary change in with FMT. The former has been tweaked and tested for a hundred years and we know that it's not going to be a cure for anything.
Well I like some aspects of the way you think and if i ever need a typist ill know who to call since you claim to have typed the entire last post, haha.The idea of intestinal bacteria being the cause of disease has existed way before barry marshall and his h pylori experiments, elie mecthnikoff book in the early 1900's developed a theory of aging and disease implicating intestinal bacteria and a concept of endotoxemia aka autointoxication.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XJ...=elie metchnikoff prolongation of life&f=true

here is his book full text http://books.google.com/books?id=XJ...=elie metchnikoff prolongation of life&f=true

And John harvey kellogg who started kellogg cereals was a doctor who tried applying these theories by giving yogurt enemas to patients.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg#Battle_Creek_Sanitarium
http://books.google.com/books?id=kbMwAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA254&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also my thoughts on Barry Marshalls "proof" that H.pylori was the cause of ulcers I'm wondering where he ever thought people were coming into contact with large amounts of h pylori in the first place to develop an ulcer, as his experiment may never simulate realistic conditions. and how do we know he needed antibiotics to clear this infection or if his body would have eventually recovered on its own? its a start, but that wouldn't be sufficient to prove this is how people developed ulcers in real life, but its a good observation to build a theory. Obviously we now see how barry's conclusions may not have been justified in light of the new techniques we have to study bacteria, and that he simply had a theoretical model which probably should have been refined, well now its being refined as we see.


As far as the skepticism of any company developing a cure, it seems the fecal transplant pill would be the cure all, only if it is based on the full microbiota and not selected bacterial species. There are patents that exist and money to be made off this for sure and they are working on this right now, but as far as i recall its not a full flora, that's the one we will want, but a selection of the right bacteria would do alot for us, but people may have damage all over the place.
 
As far as the skepticism of any company developing a cure, it seems the fecal transplant pill would be the cure all, only if it is based on the full microbiota and not selected bacterial species. There are patents that exist and money to be made off this for sure and they are working on this right now, but as far as i recall its not a full flora, that's the one we will want, but a selection of the right bacteria would do alot for us, but people may have damage all over the place.
In my horrific skepticism, I see anything that is used once for a cure as a nightmare for any of the pharmaceutical companies that have a "take for the rest of your life" drug on the market.

I'm no lawyer, nor have I concentrated very hard on the topic of patent protection, but I thought I heard somewhere that living things can not be patented? If there are companies out there that are trying to isolate various gut microbes to use in a non-full flora cure, maybe that would be patentable. The good news about some patented mix of microbes: the insurance companies would see that even if treatment with this magic juice was really expensive, it would be cheaper than paying for these insanely priced biologics for the rest of one's life, not to mention the surgery when the drugs quit working. We just have to hope that they don't engineer the magic juice to stop working after a few months (i.e. the don't create a cure, instead they come up with something they'd like better: a cash cow for them that would require patients to use it for the rest of their days).
 
In my horrific skepticism, I see anything that is used once for a cure as a nightmare for any of the pharmaceutical companies that have a "take for the rest of your life" drug on the market.

I'm no lawyer, nor have I concentrated very hard on the topic of patent protection, but I thought I heard somewhere that living things can not be patented? If there are companies out there that are trying to isolate various gut microbes to use in a non-full flora cure, maybe that would be patentable. The good news about some patented mix of microbes: the insurance companies would see that even if treatment with this magic juice was really expensive, it would be cheaper than paying for these insanely priced biologics for the rest of one's life, not to mention the surgery when the drugs quit working. We just have to hope that they don't engineer the magic juice to stop working after a few months (i.e. the don't create a cure, instead they come up with something they'd like better: a cash cow for them that would require patients to use it for the rest of their days).
yea i recall that bacteria are not patentable, or at least probiotics. the mixture that you develop and the method of encapsulation or even the concept of human feces derived bacteria for the use of treating a specific ailment, might be patentable though and i recall Dr Borody holds some patents on this. So there are these concepts of the uses they have that people can patent, THAT is what makes it an invention, but don't quote be verbatim. There may be a way to actually isolate the right bacteria learn to culture them(good luck!!) but you would never legally be allowed to advertise them with the use intended unless you put them through fda clinical trials for the defined ailment, so doing that would merely be a personal project and not a business.

here are some patents that exist
http://www.sumobrain.com/patents/wi...ral-transplantation-methods/WO2012016287.html
http://www.sumobrain.com/patents/wipo/Encapsulated-intestinal-flora-extracted-from/WO2011033310.html

As far as the money to gain from a once use drug think about the recently proven treatment for hepatitis c, the price is really high top of my head 80,000 for a 12 week treatment to cure hep c. so they would probably just raise the price. this is really not my area of expertise though, so just off the top of my head.


there are companies that are making the type of drugs that are based on the metabolites of the good bacteria, rather then the good bacteria itself, so this would be more along the lines of a continuous treatment for life rather then the possibility of a cure. all sorts of stuff going on nobody knows how things will pan out, im pretty certain for IBD we replace the bacteria and were done for life, seems the evidence is slowly pointing in that direction especially with borodys word for word quote in recent medical journals stating some patients seem cured of UC and Crohn's.
 
Last edited:
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Induces Early Improvement in Symptoms in Patients With Active Crohn's Disease
Byron P. Vaughn, Dirk Gevers, Amanda Ting, Joshua R. Korzenik, Simon C. Robson, Alan C. Moss
http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(14)62143-0/pdf

The question is: can the remission be sustained?

Read the first post of this thread for reports of sustained remission up to 12 years in crohn's disease. This prompted Professor Borody to suspect the patient may have been cured. what is new about the report you provided is that i believe this is one of the first times a crohn's patient achieved a remission with a single colonoscopic FMT. The 12 years remission occured with a nasoduodenal tube.
 
Borody says 1 in 30 itl sustain remission for CD, if it doesn't then it's probably because your cd isn't primarily caused by a disbiosis but rather an infection, probably AEIC or MAP, if it is caused by a disbiosis then you'll probably see the results your after. But it's still early early days, hopefully they'll discover how to make it more successful
For cd soon
 
So one of my original intentions for this thread was for people who wanted to find donors to do a fecal transplant, could help each other do this, so I'm bringing this issue back up i guess, any comments or ideas?

With 15 f.d.a. clinical trials underway and official documented cases being cured, I'd think it's pretty clear this idea is real and has promise. I suppose some people are fine with waiting 3-5 years for this treatment to be available, while some are not.
 
Last edited:
I understand that there are clinics that will be opening in travel destinations near, but not within th US.

In other words, you take a vacation and work-in adopting a new micribiome!
 
Hot off the Press!!
23 out of 30 patients achieve remission with fecal transplant via naso-duodenal tube( aka mid gut).note also that these were all the worst cases of crohn's disease resistant to medications(refractory). Also note this was achieved with one dose of oral FMT rather then 30-60 enemas or colonoscopic FMT.



J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2014 Aug 28. doi: 10.1111/jgh.12727. [Epub ahead of print]
Fecal microbiota transplantation through mid-gut for refractory Crohn's disease: Safety, feasibility and efficacy trial results.

Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIM:
The gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in the intestinal diseases. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) might be a rescue therapy for refractory inflammatory bowel disease. This study aimed to evaluate the safety, feasibility and efficacy of FMT through mid-gut for refractory Crohn's disease (CD).
METHODS:
We established standardized laboratory protocol and clinical work flow for FMT. Only refractory CD patients with Harvey-Bradshaw Index (HBI) score ≥ 7 were enrolled for this study. All included patients were treated with single FMT through mid-gut and assessed during follow-up.
RESULTS:
Metagenomics analysis showed a high concordance between feces sample and purified fecal microbiota from same donors. Standardized fecal microbiota preparation and clinical flow significantly simplified the practical aspects of FMT. Totally 30 patients were qualified for the present analysis. The rate of clinical improvement and remission based on clinical activity at the first month was 86.7 % (26/30) and 76.7 % (23/30) respectively, which was higher than other assessment points within 15-month follow-up. Patients' body weight increased after FMT, and the lipid profile improved as well. FMT also showed a fast and continuous significant effect in relieving the sustaining abdominal pain associated with sustaining CD.
CONCLUSIONS:
This is a pilot study with the largest sample of patients with refractory CD underwent single FMT. The results demonstrated that FMT through mid-gut might be a safe, feasible, and efficient rescue therapy for refractory CD.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
 
Last edited:

Jennifer

Adminstrator
Staff member
Location
SLO
wildbill_52280 I see that you haven't done this a second time. Have you spoken to your GI about trying it? What did they say? You also never mentioned (or at least I didn't see it) how you got into contact with your first donor.
 
Mixed results in trials. It's interesting but far from definitive.
http://m.gastroendonews.com/Article...ust+2014&i_id=1094&a_id=27918&tab=MostEmailed
this link isnt working but i think i read this article already.
there's going to mixed results for some time. check out post #260 of this thread. there are also other examples of success, these protocols are not perfected yet. the fact that some studies have shown little effect does not make other more successful studies less true, its a matter of explaining why some are successfull and some are not, it doesn't negate the results of other studies, they are BOTH true. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, more studies are need to determine why, but it's working that's a fact.
 
Last edited:
Just a friendly reminder that the first post of this thread still has alot of good information in it, for those that have never seen it. Although i would love to take time and improve it sometime.
 
Published on Oct 24, 2014
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. We are more obsessed with cleanliness than ever: we use antibacterial cleansers, we keep our children away from dirt, and we give out antibiotics with little regard for long-term effects. But in the process we are altering our microbiota, the microbes that live on and inside us. And it's causing us to be more sick.

Claire M. Fraser, PhD, is a world-renowned scientist who launched a new field of study – microbial genomics and, through her ground-breaking research and pioneering leadership in this field, has fundamentally changed our understanding of the diversity and evolution of microbial life on Earth. Her collective work over two decades, has made sustained and transformational changes to our understanding of microbial biology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSRGlbXkJs4#t=983
 
What is the latest science (or conjecture) concerning pre-FMT antibiotics?

I see that the published document from Dr. Borody had specific types, amounts, and timings, but that document was published a long while back so the thinking may have changed. Any more recent documents that I can read on this topic?

For the readers of this thread...if you were going to get a professional (ie expensive) FMT, would you opt in , or opt out of pre-FMT antibiotics and why?
 
Part of the work highlighted in the paper shows the rapid recovery of a young man with Crohn’s colitis whom Kao is treating. “We gave him fecal transplant and then within a week his symptoms started to improve.” She adds the real shock came at the follow-up colonoscopy four weeks later for another transplant, as the symptoms had disappeared entirely from his bowel. “I was absolutely shocked to see that the inflammation had completely healed. I wasn’t expecting it to look like that.”
http://www.med.ualberta.ca/news/2014/november/fecal-microbial-transplant
 
I suggest looking into healingwell ulcerative colitis forum:
http://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=38&r=x
Lots of personal experiment, some succes stories, lots of topics about FMT. Just use the search button.
A lot of talk over there about biofilms. Back to my question, it sounds like antibiotics (and 5-ASA) make the biofilm less dense, but of course doesn't get rid of it. If the idea of an FMT is to have a new set of gut micribes take hold, it would seem to me that weakening rhe biofilm would be a good idea. So pre-fmt antibiotics would be indicated?
 
What is the latest science (or conjecture) concerning pre-FMT antibiotics?
rollinstone, Can you tell me when your last dose of antibiotics were before your first FMT? I had heard 2 or 3 days of no antibiotics before FMT, but I wanted to know what your experience was.
 
A super long article on Fecal Transplants.
The New Yorker December 1st 2014.
Nothing new to us in that article, but I'd say the author did a great job of covering the history and current status, including a good summary of the FDA actions (stool as a drug vs a tissue), and even a bit of speculation of what is to come if big pharma comes up with a cultured C. Diff enema (might force a shutdown of the non-profit OpenBiome).
 
An update on my latest fecal transplant experience-

EDIT- I forgot to mention that most of my symptoms were under control before doing the FMT, more precisely I have one bm per day, so most of improvements could not be measured by how much diarrhea I have, so i measured the FMT efficacy by other symptoms

8 weeks ago I attempted to do another fecal transplant. This time instead of trying to make pills, I drank 8 ounces of apple juice mixed with stool so about 1 measured cup. My donor was young and his stool sample was very firm and not an ideal sample to use for a fecal transplant because it likely had very little good bacteria in it. I used the sample anyways because its been so hard to find a donor. His stool was so hard that it barely broke up even in the blender! My health has improved about 15% despite all the imperfections, so i do not regret it.

So my BMs have been healthier looking, they are larger and softer BUT I still have quite a few symptoms of disease so ill have to do it again using a better stool sample. The biggest improvement has been a dramatic increase in weight, I've gained a pound a week since the transplant so 8-9 lbs. I have gained all this weight without increasing my caloric intake, so that demonstrates that it was the fecal transplant and not simply increasing my calories. Now I'm considered to be at a healthy weight. I believe what is happening is that i gained some new bacteria and I'm now extracting more energy from the same amount of food it seems. Studies show that sterilized mice with no gut bacteria require more calories to maintain their weight when compared to mice with gut bacteria. This is a most likely explanation of my experiance with FMT.

My symptoms of anxiety are much lower now and my brain works a little better too, keep in mind I am a severe case and my bodily dysfunction is profound. All in all, I'm so glad i did it , there were only minor side effects that went away after the second week which were a slight increase in mucus and one or two days of really small dry stools and some floating stools from fat malabsorption. I will have to do it again and hope that my next donor will correctly follow the proper diet to give me a healthy sample with a high enough bacteria dose where I might obtain the correct strains that will fix the inflammatory response. I believe the benefits are permanent since the side effects left 6 weeks ago and I'm still reaping the benefits. My next fecal transplant is in about 2 weeks from now ill let you know how that goes. I will be doing the procedure in a similar way by drinking the solution but I'm using saline instead of apple juice . later!
 
Last edited:

Spooky1

Well-known member
Location
South Northants
that's interesting. I'm trying homemade sauerkraut at the moment. I'm hopeful the probiotics in this will help me to replenish the gut flora. It's cheaper and more potent than bought pills, and yogurt.
 
By drinking poo there is a possibility that one reason it works is induction of oral
immune tolerance to the bacteria, which may be lost in IBD. Loss of tolerance is an old IBD theory.
Old Mike
 

Jennifer

Adminstrator
Staff member
Location
SLO
Are you vaccinated against typhoid fever wildbill_52280? How do you know your donors aren't carriers?

"Persons with typhoid fever carry the bacteria in their bloodstream and intestinal tract. In addition, a small number of persons, called carriers, recover from typhoid fever but continue to carry the bacteria. Both ill persons and carriers shed Salmonella Typhi in their feces (stool)." http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/typhoid_fever/
 
Are you vaccinated against typhoid fever wildbill_52280? How do you know your donors aren't carriers?

"Persons with typhoid fever carry the bacteria in their bloodstream and intestinal tract. In addition, a small number of persons, called carriers, recover from typhoid fever but continue to carry the bacteria. Both ill persons and carriers shed Salmonella Typhi in their feces (stool)." http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/typhoid_fever/
That is useful to know. I'm generally familiar with my donors though, although it's possible for me to expose myself to risks, I do what i can to make sure they are healthy and cross my fingers. No matter what we do in life some risk is unavoidable. So far so good. One donor has taken extensive blood tests. It was HIV, Hep C and undiagnosed IBD I'm most concerned about. from the link it sounds like they are just advising people to see their doctor as they recover from the illness as they may not have recovered 100% even though they seemed to be recovered, im not sure this means they carry the bacteria forever though its just not that clear from this site alone whether this is the case. I think they are saying to let a doctor run some tests to make sure you are 100% recovered so you do not infect anyone else.
 
Last edited:
Update on my second Fecal transplant-

2 days ago i drank another mixture of stool and this time i mixed with saline rather then apple juice. I almost threw up this time!! but held it down. zero negative effects so far and nothing positive yet. Unlike the last time i did not have intense intestinal gurgling followed by a bloody bm 3 hours later, this may be from using saline this time instead of apple juice which the high sugar content would have resulted in more diarhea symptoms, in that sense the new method is an improvement. Based on the experiance i have gained from all this if i do this again i will mix stool with distilled water instead, as i think the saline may have inspired the inclination to throw up, rarely do humans encounter such a salty fluid and i did not have any urge to throw up when mixing it with apple juice. The saltiness may have been a problem or the presence of an actual food like apple juice been protective against an urge to throw up.

The donors stool was softer this time, but a little too soft. It's hard to know yet whether this was a good or bad thing, generally speaking though it looked within a normal healthy range to me, based on what I know about what a healthy stool sample should look like so not perfect but not bad either. Ill be back with an update in about a week or so.if you can do what i just did 2x, MAYBE you can call yourself a man, ha.
 
I really appreciate what you are doing wildbill, make sure you don't leave us hanging.

I think drinking the fecal matter is much more effective than having an enema, a lot of the imbalance is also within the small intestine.

You should have much better results than others who had it done through an enema.
 
I really appreciate what you are doing wildbill, make sure you don't leave us hanging.

I think drinking the fecal matter is much more effective than having an enema, a lot of the imbalance is also within the small intestine.

You should have much better results than others who had it done through an enema.
That's what I am hoping for. My biggest concern is having the donor follow the correct diet, its been hard to get them to comply. the variability of bacterial composition in any given stool sample is supposedly pretty high, so with only one chance to get it right, multiple transplants could be more beneficial, even though just one could be enough. The only official reported cured crohn's patient used 3 donors at one time. This way it's like doing it 3x, it really increases the chances of getting the strains you need. If i do fail, i believe it's because of the donors diet. but ill do it again and make sure they understand the importance. its been hard enough just to convince them to help me, let alone follow a strict diet. They now see that im not dead and in fact improved in many ways and therefore i have succeeded in showing them it's generally safe. now perhaps ill get a chance to really understand how this all works.
 
IBD and IBS take YEARS to develop, as a result, fecal therapy has to be very rigorous in order to fix the damage that has been done.

I like to think of it as a workout. If you are obese and out of shape, a single exercise session is not going to do much. You need to exercise routinely and continuously to see any improvements.
 
Top