Poo Transplants

[crossfire]

Deadly superbug Clostridium difficile beaten using poo transplants from healthy people
You can give it, take it or cop it. It can hit the fan and sometimes life forces you to eat a sandwich made from it, but it's also proving to be a cure for a deadly superbug

Comments

[slinkslowdown]

Euuuuuuugh, my mother had Clostridium difficile forever and the government wouldn't cover her meds so a friend copped out $900 for them. AND IT STILL DIDN'T WORK. D:< ofc, she has lupus and any nasties are gonna pwn her in general.

She knew about the poo transplants and just giggled about it.

[kimbleshi]

300 people a day dying in the US from C.diff? That sounds awfully high.

[brewsternorth]

You wonder how it breaks down by pre-existing variables (autoimmune disease, immune deficiency, old age, poor hospital care).

[mercystars]

Mte, that has to be a mistake, that would be over a hundred thousand people dying from this in one year (109,500)...maybe they meant 300 per year...?

[crossfire]

That's what I was thinking. 300 deaths a day from a ZOMG SUPERBACTERIA? Totally newsworthy, I would have expected it to be all over the media.

[clevermanka]

As someone who has chronic G.I. problems that are exacerbated by an autoimmune disease, I would be all over this if it would work for me. I don't think it's any more gross than putting other chemicals in your body. Or getting a blood transfusion.

[ragnor144]

I keep telling a family member with a nasty case of ulcerative colitis that he needs pig tapeworm treatments. He has also had C. diff but fortunately that treatment worked. It just needs a better popular name than "poo transplant." I'd do it over medications, but I am also someone who was willing to eat rat tapeworms for a guaranteed A- on my developmental biology final (as was half my class). Too bad the prof. was only joking.

[cheez_ball]

"I keep telling a family member with a nasty case of ulcerative colitis that he needs pig tapeworm treatments."

Are you a doctor?

As a person with a chronic illness I can't possibly express exactly how irritating it is to constantly get "medical advice" from people who have no business giving it.

Infection with intestinal parasites substitutes one disease state for another. It's not a trade-off to be taken lightly or flippantly suggested by someone who doesn't know the possible consequences. And the parasites used in the treatment in questions are not pig tapeworms. Different species.

[ragnor144]

I'm sorry, I did word that badly and flippantly. I brought it up to him and his D.O. brother / advocate for consideration and research. Between the illness and the treatments he is incapacitated, so I deflect inappropriately - this time by being too flippant. I rage when people tell me to "just snap out" of being bipolar and I am sorry that I turned around and did the same here.

[mandalaya]

We put medications and inoculations into our bodies that are based on substances from another animal (sometimes human) all the time. This is kind of gross, but so much less gross (and painful and unhealthy) than chronic terrible diarrhea!