MarkWithIBD said...
FMT didn't work for me either. Actually, it made me a lot worse. I was also told that the success rate is high, but keep in mind that they don't generally include the drop-out numbers in their end results, unless those people come back in to do the follow up surveys. Most don't because, say you drop out in the second month, and the study continues for over a year. How many drop outs will come back in to do the paperwork when it didn't work for them? Not many. I certainly didn't.
In my case when I added FMT to my severe inflammation, it made me immune system 10x more reactive because now it had foreign bacteria on top of dealing with what was already there. I developed an abscess that required surgery. It was really awful.
In the FMT community research groups, the consensus seems to be that the higher your level of inflammation, the less chance FMT will get you into remission. Bacteria live on the healthy mucosa and if it's inflamed or ulcerated, bacteria won't form thriving communities. If you can get yourself more than halfway to remission, there's a higher chance it'll work. The people who achieved remission (or close, like 90%) and then did FMT were able to stay in remission for much longer, and many indefinitely. In other words you still need to address the underlying cause of your UC before FMT can really work. For only a small percent of patients, the absence of diverse flora is the root cause. For most people the lack of diversity is just a symptom.
The only thing FMT is guaranteed to work for is c. diff infection. The success rate is 90% regardless of what stage of UC you're having.
Wow !! Sorry you had complications after you tried the FMT that had to be rough? When the nurse mentioned such a high success rate I too was surprised because like you the only high success rate I read about
was for C diff. Then I am sure there is no way I would have had success with my UC my whole colon was all ulcerated , unless they caught it in the beginning.
How are you feeling now Mark?