Faecal Transplants are Here - A 100 Million Flies Weren't Wrong After All!

It sounds disgusting, and probably is, but faecal transplants are now taking place in hospitals in the UK and the US in order to control bowel infections in the most natural way possible, and to save the lives of people who would die otherwise.

We have all heard of the new superbugs, that are antibiotic resistant. They are bacteria that build in the gut and cause all sorts of recurring problems.

Clostridium difficile is one, and if you are unlucky enough to become infected, the antibiotics you take to combat it, will also kill off other naturally occurring bacteria in the gut that may have taken care of the c.difficile instead.

C.difficile has been responsible for many deaths. The only effective medicine against it is antibiotics, and sometimes they don't work.

What happens instead is that the antibiotics kill off all the other bacteria, allowing the c.difficile to explode in numbers.

If this is happening inside your abdomen, you will become very sick indeed with watery diarrhoea and vomiting, and as the toxins released by this bacteria rise in numbers, they could start shutting down your vital organs, and death ensues.

So some doctors came up with the bright idea to use healthy faecal tissue from another person, preferably a close family member from your household, who is likely to already have large numbers of bacteria in their gut that has already been exposed to the c.difficile, and transplant it into your stomach where the fresh influx of this fighting bacteria could get to work taking care of the damaging bacteria.

Bacteria eat other bacterias, and are far more effective at controlling rogue ones than any modern day medicine.

The amazing thing about this treatment is that it works in an incredible 90% of cases.

It is transplanted by means of an naso-gastric tube straight into the stomach where it can get to work.

A small sample of faecal matter is produced by the donor on the morning of the transplant.

It is then blended with salt water before being filtered through a coffee filter.

The remaining liquid is then fed through the nasogastric tube that is inserted in through the patient's nose and pushed all the way down the back of the throat and into the stomach.

Getting a naso-gastric tube inserted is an unpleasant experience, but has got to be better than drinking the concoction the doctor has just rustled together in the hospital kitchen!

Actually just kidding, he'll have prepared it in a lab or somewhere with machines that are never again used to prepare food.

So powerful is this concoction, that only about 30mls - a large tablespoon - of liquid faecal matter is transplanted.

Within hours of this treatment, the vast majority of patients feel a whole lot better, and of those who recovered, which has been 90% of them so far, none have suffered the typical recurring infections c. difficile usually brings.

Faecal transplants are not in widespread use.

Very few doctors have carried out the procedure, and no controlled studies have been done.

But when your or a close relative's life is on the line due to an overhwelming antibiotic-resistant bowel infection, a faecal transplant is certainly worth considering.

Disgusting though it may sound, it really can save a life.

One such doctor, Professor Lawrence Brandt, who is a gastroenterologist from Montefiore Medical Center in New York, has carried our faecal transplants more than 3 dozen times, and daily receives daily emails from people desperate to be offered the treatment.

He describes faecal transplants are being the most exciting medical breakthrough to happen in the field of gastroenterology, ever.

As many more doctors throughout the US are now expressing an interest in this treatment, he is hopeful that other gastrointestinal diseases like irritable bowel syndrome may even find a cure using this technique.

Meanwhile, Dr. Alisdair MacConnachie from Gartnavel General Hopsital in Glasgow, Scotland is the only doctor in the UK to have carried out faecal transplants.

Out of the 20 patients he has performed this technique on since 2003, 19 have made a complete recovery.

As the old saying goes

• "Eat sh*t, 100 million flies can't be wrong!"

It looks very much as if those 100 million flies were indeed correct.

Disclaimer:

Don't try this at home folks!

The human bowel does indeed carry very many bacteria, most of which are completely harmless, but some of them can be very dangerous indeed.

Always wash your hands after visiting the toilet. Be safe.