Fecal Transplant - I took the plunge! PART IV

I'm trying this for colonic CD. Last night I took my 9 year old's daughter's stool, added salt water, and tried to mix it up in a ziploc bag. I emptied a saline rectal bottle I got from CVS and filled it with the stool/salt water mixture. Tried to insert it, but couldn't squeeze anything out. Then my husband tried to filter the stool (thinking it was clogged in the tip) and lost 2/3 of the mixture down the drain. Turns out there was a little paper thing in the lid that had an X on it that wouldn't have been an issue with saline water, but blocked the stool mixture. Sigh.

I inserted the 2 oz or so, but don't expect anything. I've been on Augmentin (antibioitcs) for 2 months now for a rectal abscess. The abscess is cleared, but when I tried to come off the antibiotics, I regressed, so my doctor put me back on . I stopped the antibioitcs yesterday, so hoping I can get 7 straight infusions now. I bought an enema bag but thought the squeeze bottle would be easier.

Luckily, my daughter poops at night. So we'll give it another go tonight. I'll let everyone know what happens. I'm having solid stools right now, but we'll see if I can get off the antibioitcs and keep that.

Post Edited (7007) : 4/15/2011 9:18:16 AM (GMT-6)

A great podcast to listen to. Apparently doctors are having success with fecal transplants for such obscure conditions like MS, Parkinsons, and obesity is being studied:

http://freakonomicsradio.com/the-power-of-poop.html

Apparently, it does work to alter the bacterial composition to the donor's : http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/fecal-transplantation-alters-rat-gut-microbiomes

Another article: http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57795/

It's really getting attention in the media! I tried hookworm therapy and had great results, but had to reinfect every 6 months and suffered side effects each time. Tried TSO and had an extremely negative reaction. Still hosting the hookworms (I do weekly egg counts) but since I had to go on antibiotics for 3 rectal abscesses, they've been "dormant". (People notice they stop working while on antibioitcs, and often egg counts plummit.)

I'm hoping fecal bacteriotherapy restores the colonic microbiota, plus diet (2 weeks in on GAPS), probiotics (I take VSL, s. boulardii, Biokult and eat 30 hour yogurt, saurkraut and kombucha.) And then I'm hoping I stabilize long enough to tolerate another 10 hookworms.

God, if I had known when I was diagnosed at 16 (I'm 39) that I'd be putting hookworms in my skin, and other people's poop up my butt, I never would have believed it. My 13 year old daughter came by after I tried the fecal enema and said, "Mom, you're very, very brave."

Anything for a cure.

7007 - many thanks for posting. I am very pleased to hear that you are trying faecal transplantation. I hope it works for you and would be very grateful if you could keep us updated with your progress.

Prof Borody who is the only doctor in the world doing this for conditions other than C Diff and he gives a colonic lavage before transplantation which is the sort of treatment given to patients before colonoscopy. The purpose of this is to clean out the colon so that the infusion can take up residence properly. Did you do the lavage beforehand?

I assume you are doing this for UC, is that right?

Also, the way the hospitals mix the stool and the saline is with a blender which they switch on for 10 seconds. Maybe you don't want to use your blender fo rhtis purpose which is understandable but it may solve the issue with clogging up the rectal insert.

What amount of transfusion you are using, 250ml?

I wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing your updates.

Mackster - unfortunately it is not just "simple faeces", it is an incredibly diverse and complex mixutre of bacteria most of which have not been identified by medical science let alone being able to culture. However, I believe there is now a project to map the human microbiome in faeces so this may be the very early start of being able to reproduce it.

MOMUC19 - thanks for the post. Did your daughter have antibiotics beforehand? How much stool did you use? How much saline did you use? How many infusions did you give your daughter and did it have any postive effect?

I just bumped into this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110415/us_nm/us_food_bacteria_study

That's probably what I had on my face when I was 30 to 35. I was overseas at the time; so I was never told what kind of bacteria infection it was. But it was bad. Imagine two boils three inches in diameter with boils on top of them. That's what I had. One was on my check and the other on my chin. And then I had a whole bunch of boils on my nose. I should have taken a photo because I can't find any photos on the Internet resembling what I had.

Surprisingly, when I go to dermatologists, they don't think my scarring is bad enough to do anything about. They just prescribe me Retin-A. (And antibiotics for the acne that's left, which I don't take.)

So I tried last night with an enema bag. At first I didn't get the tip high enough in my rectum, so although I felt a trickle, when we looked at what was left in the bag, barely any had gone in. So we tried again, with it further in, and that was successful.

However, after about 20 minutes, I had some gas and couldn't keep it in. ;(

How do people hold this all night? I'm going to try not to make it so liquidy tonight to see if that helps.

I also wonder if I should do an enema first to evacuate the colon? I'm wondering if the stool enema just stimulated a bowel movement in me, because after the liquid came some solid.

I didn't think this would be so hard! Should I take some Immodium or hydrocodein a few hours before to try to slow things down? Or use less? I mixed one cup of stool with about that much salt water.

Any tips welcome. My rectum is a little inflamed, and I have terrible internal and external hemmerhoids, so inserting the tip isn't fun. But I'm having solid stools still, so my colon isn't bad. Just wish I could hold it all night and see the results.

7007 said...
How do people hold this all night? I'm going to try not to make it so liquidy tonight to see if that helps.

I use only 20 ml, of which 10 ml is water and the other 10, poo. There are tons of bacteria in only 10 ml of poo. Why use more than that?

Initially, I used 40% stool and 60% saline water. After that, I used 50% stool and 50% saline water.



Here is the exact post I posted after we had completed ALL the transplants. It was 10/21/2010 (I think)

Up to the point right before we started the FT's our daughters colon was scoped 4 times ! Each looking worse than the last. Her last scope before we did the FT was in October. Her colon looked absolutely awful. That was what sent us over the edge to even consider the FT's. Below is a pretty detail account of what we did. Let me know if you have any questions. She had a 5th scope early November (about 2 weeks after the FT). Her colon was pink, healthy and her mucousa looked beautiful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, so let me first say that my daughter is my new hero !! I can't even believe that she has agreed to do this. It's quite odd ~ But we are forging on in Faith !

My husband purchased a toilet insert at a medical supply store. 1 gallon of distilled water. Several boxes of Fleet enemas. Sea Salt.

I'm basically winging it here and I'm just following some of the things that others have done successfuly.

I made some saline with 2 tspns of sea salt mixed well into 1 liter of distilled water. Shook well. Set aside.

1st Transplant ~ Daughter E. (14 years old) did her part and supplied her "donation". I took about half of it (said donation) and mixed it with about 6 ounces of the saline I had prepared.
I used the toilet insert as my mixing "pot". I mixed thorougly. With a funnel I added it to a fleet enema that I had previously emptied. I funneled it thru,surprisingly, without any problems. I added about 1 tspn of psyllium powder to it. (First Mistake !!).

We were able to get thru about 3/4 of the "solution". Daughter stayed on the bathroom floor for about 2 hours. Half traumatized/half pain. She then got up and layed in our bed until the following morning. She held "the donation" for 15 hours ! ! !

Note to self ** Don't use psyllium powder next time. Made solution much thicker than we needed it to be.

2nd Transplant ~ Took the "donation" from E. and basically followed the same procedure. Didn't add the psyllium powder this time.

Transplant time between 1st and 2nd transplant was 3 days. Couldn't control that.

3rd Transplant ~ E's "donation" was alot easier to handle. Not as hard as the first two times and so I was able to mix it alot easier and use a bit more donation versus saline. I was initially doing 60 % saline 40% donation. But with this transplant I would say it was 50/50.
At this time I used a different method of mixing. Got the idea from someone on this forum. I think I went back and read all the previous posts about FT.

I took half the donation from the toilet insert and placed it in a large ziploc bag. Added the saline, closed the bag and mixed it that way. Once I got it a little mixed I used a tongue depresser to sort of "iron" out any lumps and to make it as smooth as possible.

Funneled it into the enema bottle. This time I added 1 whole satchet of VSL#3 DS.
Again, adding stuff makes it more difficult to mix and also had a very difficult emptying the enema. Had to take it out and "unclog" it a few times. Which of course added to the discomfort of the whole thing.

4th &5th transplant~ Followed the same procedure as transplant #3. Only thing I did differently was to run the filled enema bottled under some warm water before my daughter inserted the enema. Did not add VSL #3 to these.

5th transplant was hard. My daughter is a strong young lady and she has endured alot, especially over the last 6 weeks, but this can really try the patience of anyone !

We've successfully completed 5 FT. The last 3 were done one right after the other. No days in between. Her poop looks good. Oddly enough it looks like her donor's poop. She was able to hold the "donations" in anywhere from 4-15 hours. We did the enemas at night, generally around 7:30-8:00 pm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19 yo daughter diagnosed with UC
Meds ~ Lialda 2 a day ~ Prednisone 40mg
Began Pred. tapering 10 mgs current dosage
Probiotics..VSL#3 & Dr. O's
Psyllium powder 1/4 tspn.
Vitamin B12 Oscal1 pill 2 X a day
Protonix 40mgs
12.5 mgs Xanax when needed
Slippery Elm & Turmeric

idkwia, could you send the Borody instructions to [email protected]?

How do we get the fecal infusion any farther then the sigmoid colon? Would the new bacteria make it over to the cecum? One part of the DIY method that seems a little less effective then the colonoscope route, which would take the donor feces all the way to the ilium.

7007 said...
idkwia, could you send the Borody instructions to [email protected]?

How do we get the fecal infusion any farther then the sigmoid colon? Would the new bacteria make it over to the cecum? One part of the DIY method that seems a little less effective then the colonoscope route, which would take the donor feces all the way to the ilium.

When the bacteria take hold, they multiply. I would suppose they would take the same route as the inflammation, from the bottom up. However, I would think the less inflammation, then the greater chance of the newly introduced bacteria taking hold. For this reason, it's probably best to try fecal transplantation earlier and not as a last resort.

How often are you going to repeat the enemas? I wonder if we need to do this every so often just to keep things in check?

I'm finding it very inconvenient to stop everything and lay down for several hours. My daughter usually goes at night, but of course, since starting this, she's now gone at 11:30 two of the four days. (Yesterday, she forgot and pooped at the neighbors.) Luckily, my husband and I work out of the house, and my daughters are partially homeschooled, and it's .Spring break.

I still can't believe I'm doing this!

Wow,Georgie girl, you've gone through hell. As many of us here have.

You're so lucky to be in Australia with the guru of Fecal transplants, Dr. Borody.

I really hope for those of us doing this at home, that we have success without doing the colonoscope or nasal tubing. I still don't understand how our enemas are going to reach the cecum.

I had a 99.9 fever last night and a terrible headache. I was going to do 4 more infusions...should I do it when I'm sick?

Of course, I'm paranoid the abscesses are coming back, but I'm having solid stools and almost no mucus. But the enema tips hurts when going in, and I'm wondering if I'm irritating the rectum with this? I should get a blood test back in a few days with CRP and my white blood cell count, that will be telling.

I also have a bit of a runny nose, so hopefully it's just a minor flu. Yesterday's infusion (my daughter has an unfortunate 11 Am schedule these days, was A LOT. She also had eaten a whole bag of dried apples, so the stool was full of that.

WE got in about 250 ml, and I held it for the entire day. But also had a lot of gas and felt VERY full of poop, as I had just had a little bowel movement that morning.

REally hopes this works longterm. If not, I try Prochymal.