Fecal transplant
Lara Thompson was 26 when her life changed. In early 2008, she was living in Rhode Island and working at an AIDS prevention research institute when she suddenly developed diarrhea and vomiting.
At first, she thought she had a viral infection or that her digestive system was out of whack due to stress, so she didn't think the problem would last more than a few days.
But it wasn't, and Lara lost 15 to 20 pounds in three weeks. The severe diarrhea meant she had to go to the bathroom every time she felt like pooping and couldn't go to work.
When she consulted a doctor, she realized that her problem was more than a simple viral infection. It turned out that her digestive system was infected with a bacteria called Clostridium difficile. This bacteria is difficult to treat because it is resistant to antibiotics.
Doctors initially treated her with metronidazole, which had adverse side effects such as nausea and worsening migraine headaches, but did not cure her. The next medication prescribed was vancomycin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic. This antibiotic also did not work, and the vancomycin treatment also caused her to develop a fungal infection.
Things were getting worse for Lara, and her workplace, fearing that she would spread the infection to vulnerable AIDS patients and make their conditions worse, asked her to stay off work.
For several months, things continued like this, with Lara being put on various drug regimens, none of which worked. Lara's hair began to fall out and her muscles atrophied. By the following summer, she had lost 18 kilograms and was desperate.
It was there that she searched the internet for alternative treatments until she came across a description of a treatment that didn’t involve any medication. The strange treatment was called a “fecal transplant”!
Yes! You read that right: a fecal transplant involves placing the smooth, diluted feces of a person with a healthy colon into the colon of a patient!
This is done in order to replace the patient’s bacterial colony or population with a new, different one.
Lara had nothing to lose at this point and wanted to try this treatment. At the time, she was spending most of her time on the toilet, crying, and having a mental breakdown.
She printed out what she had found and found a doctor who was familiar with the treatment. This doctor was Colin Kelly, a gastroenterologist.
In late October 2008, the fecal transplant was performed on Lara as an outpatient. Like a colonoscopy, Lara took laxatives before the transplant to cleanse her intestines.
Within two hours of receiving the fecal transplant, Lara felt better, and three years later, she has not had a repeat infection with Clostridium difficile.
Our colons are full of friendly, non-pathogenic bacteria that make it difficult for pathogenic bacteria to grow. This population of beneficial bacteria, also known as the normal colon flora, helps us resist infection with bacteria like Clostridium, as long as they are in their natural composition. But whenever this natural composition is disrupted, our intestines become susceptible to disease-causing bacteria.
This is where the term “fecal transplant” comes into play. The donor of the stool sample is preferably a close acquaintance of the patient, the strained stool contains the donor's microbial flora, which can be given to the person as an enema or inserted into the person's small intestine with a nasogastric tube.
Of course, in addition to its therapeutic use in intestinal infection with Clostridium, fecal transplantation has also been used in the treatment of ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease.
Dr. Alexander Krotz is one of the doctors who has done a lot of research in the field of fecal transplantation
We talked about beneficial bacteria, is there no way to transfer these beneficial bacteria to the body in another way? Should only patients in special cases think about using beneficial intestinal bacteria?
Here it is necessary to introduce you to a term called "probiotics", it is likely that you have seen advertisements for probiotic yogurts and have heard this term before.
Probiotics are dietary supplements that contain beneficial live microbes that cause a favorable change in the microbial balance of the intestine.
The benefits of using probiotics are numerous: preventing the growth of harmful bacteria - reducing blood cholesterol - reducing digestive problems in people who cannot tolerate milk sugar - preventing colon cancer - increasing the immune system's responsiveness to external stimuli, producing micronutrients, etc.
Lara is not the only patient who has undergone this particular transplant. Currently, a number of doctors and patients are trying to conduct more research on fecal transplants and standardize this treatment method.
However, this treatment method is not so easy to implement and is currently a treatment that is performed by gastroenterology specialists only in special medical centers and for patients who understand the problem.
For fecal transplants to be accepted by a wider population, more clinical research needs to be conducted to compare the treatment outcomes of fecal transplant recipients with those treated without a transplant.