Quote :

"Here's the basic idea. People suffering from the hardy C. diff bacteria are generally prescribed a powerful antibiotic. Problem is, the drugs don't just kill the invaders; they also wipe out much of the beneficial bacteria in the gut. With these "good" microorganisms out of the way, any C. diff stragglers have a much easier time regrouping for a second bout of illness. If there were some way to respawn the beneficial bacteria in the intestines, such re-infections could be warded off. Some people, like Ruth, turn to expensive probiotic supplements. (At one point she was spending $350 on them every week.) But in certain cases, a patient who has lost nearly all of her good bacteria will find it nearly impossible to get them back. A fecal transplant seems to work as a sort of mega-probiotic, allowing doctors to repopulate a patient's intestines with the appropriate microorganisms by placing a robust sample directly into her gut. The donor takes a stool softener the night before and then gives a full morning bowel movement to the recipient, who takes it to a doctor for screening. It's important to make sure that the sample doesn't contain any parasites or other pathogens, such as hepatitis, salmonella, or HIV. Once the transplant material has been cleared, the doctor mixes it with saline to make about a pint of liquid with the consistency of a milkshake. This is pumped into the patient's colon using a colonoscope or endoscope, or siphoned into the stomach via a nasogastric tube. (The latter method is considered more dangerous, since there's a chance feces will end up in the lungs. Colonoscopies carry their own risk of bowel perforation.) And then there's the do-it-yourself crowd. All you need is a bottle of saline, a 2-quart enema bag, and one standard kitchen blender. Mike Silverman, a University of Toronto physician who wrote up a guide to homespun fecal transplants for the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, says it's entirely safe to do the procedure this way, provided that a doctor gets involved at some point to screen the donor sample. He felt he needed to draw up the instructions because administrators at his hospital wouldn't allow their doctors to perform a procedure that hasn't been validated in a large, peer-reviewed study."

http://www.slate.com/id/2282768/pagenum/all/

sounds exciting!

2/3/2011 5:49:42 PM

What's the going rate for donors?

Would they object to a direct anus-to-anus transfer, aka a Manhattan Transfer?

2/3/2011 5:51:19 PM

Human Centipede

2/3/2011 5:51:52 PM

maybe some poop yogurt, something like Craptivia

2/3/2011 5:59:15 PM

ibthumancentipede

2/3/2011 6:03:10 PM

no, no you weren't

2/3/2011 6:04:07 PM

Quote :

"there's a chance feces will end up in the lungs"

taking the phrase "your breath smells like shit" to another level

2/3/2011 6:13:26 PM

BHS nailed it.

2/3/2011 6:26:27 PM

my grandma just got over c. diff... it got bad fast. Not sure what treatment she did. But I'm all for probiotics. Fecal transplant is kinda...umm.. gross tho :/

2/3/2011 7:12:14 PM

Quote :

"Human Centipede"

2/3/2011 7:13:04 PM

Quote :

"What's the going rate for donors? "

ahaha

2/3/2011 7:24:47 PM

^^^ I just took a shit. I'll take $20 for it.

2/3/2011 8:01:32 PM

Quote :

"Craptivia"

Haaaaaahahahahahah awesome

2/3/2011 8:16:58 PM

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8419332-sounds-gross-works-great-fecal-transplants-cure-nasty-c-diff-infections

10/24/2011 7:21:30 PM

/FecalJapan

[Edited on October 24, 2011 at 7:37 PM. Reason : -]

10/24/2011 7:37:32 PM

why do I want to read about this

10/24/2011 7:56:19 PM

this is why the appendix is in fact a very important organ.

10/24/2011 7:56:55 PM

Quote :

"or siphoned into the stomach via a nasogastric tube. (The latter method is considered more dangerous, since there's a chance feces will end up in the lungs."

aside from that risk, what about the fact that you will end up with shit in your stomach?

food is supposed to be in the stomach, not shit. shit is supposed to be in the colon.

10/25/2011 3:47:15 AM

oh wtf!!!!

10/25/2011 4:45:43 AM

can't shit in the stomach also cause serious problems and illnesses from the small amounts of bad bacteria in the poop?

10/25/2011 4:47:53 AM

well shit

10/25/2011 5:09:52 AM

I remember this being a freakonomics podcast a few months back.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/03/04/freakonomics-radio-the-power-of-poop/

I was all like


but, i guess if i had some incurable auto-immune disorder, i'd probably be willing to try anything.

10/25/2011 8:30:30 AM

I thought this was why doctors told you to eat yogurt while on antibiotics

10/25/2011 8:32:23 AM

This was on the news a year or so ago and I happened to catch an interview with the doc and a person who actually did this. The donor was a family member, so sorry for all y'all lookin' to make money off your poop.

If I was really suffering, I would do it. I'm sure that after being sick long enough, you'll do anything to feel normal again. However, you'd think that there would be a less yucky way to repopulate the gut with healthy bacteria. But I guess you can't wash all of the poop out of the poop leaving just the bacteria.

[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 8:37 AM. Reason : ^uhm, we're talking about some really powerful antibiotics]

10/25/2011 8:36:47 AM

Quote :

"But I guess you can't wash all of the poop out of the poop leaving just the bacteria."

Actually, that's a good point.

Instead of taking probiotic capsules from the mouth, why not use them as suppositories? I mean, the bacteria are readily available, so why don't they pack them into larger capsules to be taken from the other end? And I am not talking about probiotics you can get at GNC, but pharmaceutical grade probiotics, which are really powerful. Yes, poop contains a whole lot of bacteria more than a capsule, but I don't see the problem with inserting several capsules daily (each containing upto 50 billion live cells) for a few days.

A lot better than involving blenders and poop...

Blenders and poop don't mix



[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 10:10 AM. Reason : ]

10/25/2011 10:09:46 AM

Ass to ass!

[Edited on October 25, 2011 at 10:20 AM. Reason : ]

10/25/2011 10:19:01 AM