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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Ew...hilarious...promising?

Desperation will drive us to extremes.  And here's a prime example of that...

This article was in the NYTimes today: When Pills Fail, This, er, Option Provides a Cure

It discusses the use of fecal transplants in C. Difficile infections.  The basic idea behind the procedure is that if you take a healthy person's poop--with all their good intestinal flora--and put it in a patient's infected digestive tract, the good flora will take hold and cure them. 

And the craziest part is...it works.

I've read about this for use in IBD, but it always seems way too gross to even think about.  But after reading this article, I looked it up again.  While I haven't found anything definitive, there are many small studies that show this seemingly far-fetched procedure working.  (Here's a clip from Huffington Post where they actually show how the procedure is done.)

Is this the future of IBD therapy?  Many of us are trying to get off meds; could this be our answer?  (And what's worse, months and months on prednisone and years on biologics, or an enema using someone else's poop?)

Just keeping my ear to the ground on this one... 
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And on a sidenote, I cannot hear about fecal transplants without recalling Miranda July's film, You, and Me, and Everyone We Know.  When I first saw this scene, I just thought it was a super weird idea.  I guess this kid was onto something...

(This clip isn't for everyone--it's strange! You've been warned.)

2 comments:

  1. I read about that when I was first told I had crohns. I don't know if I would do it, especially after seeing it goes through the nose. But if it will make people better then why not? It's definitely pretty cool to know that there could be some what of a cure.

    By the way, that poop video at the end, is the greatest thing ever!

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  2. I agree about the nose! Somehow that is much more disturbing than the idea of an enema!

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