patrick.net

There was a story in the news about a procedure done last year sometime involved this.

Zzyzzx, you have to stop. We need more feral cat memes.

This is actually an important milestone. Fecal transplants will become standard soon to treat all kinds of chronic conditions where the gut may be involved.

Yep, this procedure has been around for quite a few years. It is a perfect example of a procedure that is cheaper and more effective than the drugs used to treat the same problems. However, it is little known because there is not much money to be made in selling poop-transplants and a lot of money to be lost in pharmaceutical sales.

leo707 says

However, it is little known because there is not much money to be made in selling poop-transplants and a lot of money to be lost in pharmaceutical sales.

Plus this poop transplant procedure has DIY potential.

This "movement" (pun intended) has been gaining steam for years. Antibiotics have screwed up so many people who now suffer from IBS, constipation, and diarrhea that a better treatment was becoming obvious. If you have the wrong bacteria in your gut, get the right sort from your friend and start living better. It's kind of a "duh" thing that the medical mafia is no longer able to fully suppress.

Other animals learned this on their own, long ago, with no medical degrees at all:

http://www.A2y_LEbdEVE

Dogs and monkeys do the same. The dog owners are shocked, but the dogs are following their noses to find what they need. It's a balance of risks - e.g. there might be parasites - but it doesn't cost anything so there's been no $ for studies.

Call it Crazy says

I don't think I'll be volunteering for that clinical trial any time soon

You'd be surprised how many drugs and other products are derived from urine and other waste. Geishas cover their faces in guano, and Japanese men seem to find it very attractive. It's a wild world.

Anyway as the article noted, a clinical trial would probably involve a capsule, no taste. Current practice is to mix with water and use a tube to deliver directly to the intestine.

Haven't they heard of probiotics? Or is it they like the idea of a more expensive shitty procedure?

Actually lack of probiotics is the cause of some of the most expensive medical cases ever.

I know of one case that went from just Crohn's disease to a major yeast infection - person was put on IV drip meds for candidiasis and ended up with IV feeding. I remember that the cost of the IV feeding (which had to be specially prepared by the pharmacist) cost so much that you could hire a couple pharmacists full time just for yourself. (It was over $20,000 per month and that was more than 20 years ago).

Never once did I ever see anything in a report or on a bill about restoring the gut flora.

And there is always someone on a transplant list because of too much antibiotics. Usually they give antibiotics until they discover fungal balls in the urine or something like - and the next thing is the anti fungal medicine (which can kill you) and then comes liver or kidney failure.

Zlxr says

Haven't they heard of probiotics?

Elephants, dogs, and monkeys all had to evolve before retailers began selling probiotics, so they seek out natural sources. Probiotics are beginning to get some clinical research, including proven benefits:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0905c.shtml

Probiotics are cheap so there isn't a big research budget but there should be. The current system puts research $ into things that can be more lucrative, not cheap things. BTW, there's nothing magic about probiotics - the active ingredient is simply live bacteria, which is what the elephant was reaching for, though the probiotics might not contain all the species needed.

And generally once you hit the $1,000,000 mark (if you have decent insurance) the insurance company cuts you off.

Regarding dogs, they aren't picky.

I witnessed a dog eat some dog shit that had a whole lot of worms standing up in the air. It was so gross.

Bye the way - that was on my way to school in 2nd grade. Obviously it made a lasting impression.

Zlxr says

worms

Helminthic therapy? We look at dogs and assume that much of their behavior must be terribly unhealthy, but somehow they rarely stay sick for more than a day. They rely on evolution, not advertising. Of course they benefit enormously from vaccines and other new technology, but most of their ancestors had to find a way to survive without all that stuff.

Zlxr says

I witnessed a dog eat some dog shit that had a whole lot of worms standing up in the air. It was so gross.

I watched my GF's Yorkie during hurricane Andrew. When the storm came over... well this isn't that story. But while I had the dog, I heard him smacking his lips in a dinky sounding "smack-clack-smack" and I was like "Hey what are you eating?" I stuck my finger in his mouth(because my GF said he was pronged to swallowing house hold items. ) and discovered it was his own crap.

Now every time I hear that over compression on NPR where the people talking all have this lip smacking cracking when they talk, it reminds me of that stupid poop eating dog.

Can we get 121212/ThedayToday to eat his own crap to see if it cures his terminal GASBAG syndrome??

SoftShell says

Can we get 121212/ThedayToday to eat his own crap to see if it cures his terminal GASBAG syndrome??

Softshell= RUKI/SHREK/SHRELGRINCH/XRPB11A/kingshit/ KennethCrass

Wanker

Your full of Crap!

May cure their problem more effective then antibiotics

This stuck out like a sore thumb, of course, relatively speaking, as antibiotics wreak havoc on your gut flora. Was pleased to see fellow posters keen to the good information, bringing up probiotics. The bacteria in your guts is so much more important to ones health, then most all of us can imagine

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/gut-flora-healthy-immune-system/

What a lod of crap.

Actually this is old news. Usually they use a spouse as the stool donor. Bring your own blender.

Zlxr says

have you heard about the new therapy of giving fat people whip worms so they can lose weight?

Yes - yet another example of cheap solutions probably safer than Fen-Phen etc. The widespread expansion of obesity in recent decades is mostly due to sugar and subsidized corn (HFCS), but an additional factor may be that fewer people have worms. I would never recommend worms for an otherwise healthy person, but they are probably safer (and certainly cheaper) than stomach staples and many diet drugs.

Intestinal worms are a bit like leeches: leeches should be avoided normally, but can be useful in some circumstances, e.g. after re-attachment surgery.

I remember when I was young, my cousin got leukemia. Her mother is uber religious and they wanted to take as natural and as homeopathic a route to "cure" her as possible. There's a lot of flim flammery out there with the witch doctors and all, but relative to modern medicine and the crap that the government approves, allows, and licenses, I'm not sure how much worse off you'd be going the alt route for most conditions

Anywhoo, this aunt came across some treatment for herself that killed off the worms in her own guts, and I remember my mom saying that she pooped out many pounds of worms and some were huge. I don't even know what that means or why I decided to post it, but the memory was activated in my brain because this aunt has been constantly ill over the years since.

I still feel like you're better off with absolutely zero "healthcare" so long as its the american brand, including the usfedgov nutritional reccomendations, as opposed to having access to more of this dangerous bullshit. Makes me sick

errc says

this aunt has been constantly ill over the years since.

She might be getting re-infested with worms, which can cause a wide variety of symptoms. She might want to try some food-grade DE, or an anti-helmintic. Also the paleo diet can kill or stun worms - which isn't an endorsement btw, if your diet has become so limited that even worms can't live on it. A lot of alt commenters rave about silica as a dietary supplement; it's the primary component of DE, so I suspect they may have been previously suffering from worms. Possibly the only benefit of routine colonoscopies is, doctors are noticing that otherwise healthy people often have worms. Usually there are no symptoms until the infestation becomes large, but if your aunt had a major infestation before, then she might have that again. Maybe diet - people eat all sorts of things, some literally eat dirt, others eat vegetables without washing the soil off. Whatever caused her to get infested the first time, if she kept doing that, she might be infested again.

Or conceivably it could be the opposite, the worms may have been protecting her from something worse in her diet. Or it might be a coincidence. I don't know, certainly not medical advice, but DE is cheap and it de-worms the digestive tract as many people including farmers can attest.

Wow - maybe she didn't continue long enough to get the eggs and the ones that wandered out of her gut.

Something someone could try either with people or cultures regarding funguses would be as follows.

Find a bunch of guys with athletes foot that also have really stinky feet.

Have some try the current athletes foot and stinky foot medications and have the rest try the following stuff:

1. Try soaking feet in a basin of hot water with Apple Cider Vinegar, 20 Mule Team Borax and Hydrogen Peroxide. It will cure stinky feet - not sure how good or how fast it works on athletes foot.

2. Try soaking in salt and baking soda mixture (twice as much baking soda as salt).

3. Try putting a probiotic with the right bacteria for athletes foot on it.

4. Try Cream of Tartar. It's a baking product - that is actually a byproduct of the wine making industry. I guess the wine won't ferment if this is in it.

I don't see how it could hurt anyone if it's topical or in a culture. Seems to me that even teenage boys (when they decide to become self conscious about such things) would think this is an interesting experiment.

I'm not sure how to set up the correct double blind experiment - but at least it would be interesting and they could get a lot of laughs out of it.