Faecal transplant eases symptoms of Parkinson's (and CFS)

[leela]

I thought I'd give this treatment a try, and report back to you guys. But as more comments came, it got me feeling that I don't want to "be the poop person, trying the poop treatment, using poop tubes, and then let's laugh at the poop procedure the person is doing".

Hey, I just admitted to the whole world (well at least the part of it that reads this thread) that I've drunk my own pee. No one ridiculed me.
I think you're safe here.

 

[Forebearance]

Interesting thread!

You know, your original intestinal colony came from your mom, from the good bacteria in her vagina. During a regular birth, a baby apparently must open its mouth enough to get some good bacteria in and there is a short period of time after a baby is born when its body doesn't fight off those bacteria. Instead they get to set up housekeeping.

So that made me wonder: what happens to people who are born by C-section? Where do they pick up their gut bacteria population?

 

[redo]

I see a duodenal tube (which, from the name of the tube I guess is supposed to end in the duodenum) is pretty long.
www.medicalshop.com.ph/Products/399-unimex-silicone-duodenal-tube.aspx
Anyone who knows how the doctors get the tube past the stomach and to the duodenum? And how they can know it has passed?

I guess the stomach acid would kill off all the probiotic gut bacteria which would be injected into the tube. So, am thinking it's important that it gets passed that (?).

If I were to get the procedure done, I'd get some trained gastro professionals to do it, but I'd like to know more about it works first. The treatment having fantastic results on CFS patients is done as an enema, so I guess that's the way to go. But none the less I'd like to learn more about the duedenal way. I might be wrong, but I think that's what they did when it had fantastic results on people who've almost developed diabetes type 2 (their insulin resistance (which is what diabetes type 2 is) steeped down towards normal levels).

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/EASD/22352

 

[Glynis Steele]

@ Forebearance, it is a well known fact that babies born by c-section have a different bacterial composition to babies that have been born naturally, also babies that are breast fed have different types of bacteria to those that are formula fed. No relevance seems to have been recognised by the medical profession regarding this, though .

@ Redo, the tube would need to be passed by someone experienced in this, to test it, it would need to be aspirated, and the contents tested against litmus paper, to check the pH. I think it is more difficult passing a duodenal tube, than an ng tube, the difficulty is getting it into the duodenum. It can be done with a type of scan or x-ray, can't remember which. Below is a link regarding the procedure.

My daughter was ng tube fed for a good few years, so I got quite experienced at passing them down.

http://www.searchmedica.co.uk/resou...al+tube&c=gp&ss=defLink&p=Convera&ds=0&srid=3

Glynis x

 

[leela]

I'm just guessing, but I would imagine getting any kind of tube to pass from the stomach into the duodenum would require one of those
fiberoptic camera thingies.

 

[Glynis Steele]

H Pylori may trigger Parkinson's

I have put this on a new thread, but thought I would also post it here.

Suspect bacterium may trigger Parkinsons
Mouse study finds stomach ulcer-causing microbes may also affect brainBy Tina Hesman Saey Web edition : Sunday, May 22nd, 2011 Text Size NEW ORLEANS Brain cells may be the latest victim of a bacterial bad guy already charged with causing ulcers and stomach cancer.

Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that lives in the stomachs of about half the people in the world, may help trigger Parkinsons disease, researchers reported May 22 at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. Parkinsons disease is a neurological disorder that kills dopamine-producing cells in some parts of the brain. People with the disease have trouble controlling their movements. About 60,000 new cases of the disease are diagnosed each year in the United States.

Some previous studies have suggested that people with Parkinsons disease are more likely than healthy people to have had ulcers at some point in their lives and are more likely to be infected with H. pylori. But until now those connections between the bacterium and the disease have amounted to circumstantial evidence.

Now researchers are gathering evidence that may pin at least some blame for Parkinsons disease on the notorious bacterium.

Middle-aged mice infected with the ulcer-causing bacterium developed abnormal movement patterns over several months of infection, said Traci Testerman, a microbiologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport. Young mice infected with the bacterium didnt show any signs of movement problems. Testermans colleague, neuroscientist Michael Salvatore, found that Helicobacter-infected mice make less dopamine in parts of the brain that control movement, possibly indicating that dopamine-making cells are dying just as they do in Parkinsons disease patients.

The bacteria didnt have to be alive to cause the problem. Feeding mice killed H. pylori produced the same effect, suggesting that some biochemical component of the bacterium is responsible.

A candidate for the disease-causing molecule is modified cholesterol. Helicobacter cant make its own cholesterol, so it steals cholesterol from its host and then sticks a sugar molecule on it. The structure of the modified cholesterol resembles a toxin from a tropical cycad; people in Guam who have eaten the plant's seeds have developed a disease called ALS-parkinsonism dementia complex. Testerman and her colleagues are trying to determine if the modified cholesterol alone can lead to Parkinson-like symptoms in mice or if some other factor from the bacterium is also needed.

Even if the scientists show that H. pylori can cause or contribute to Parkinsons disease, its not clear whether getting rid of the organism would be a good thing. Although the bacterium causes ulcers and stomach cancer, it also helps protect against allergies, asthma and esophageal cancer and other acid reflux diseases. It is hard to know at this point exactly how letting Helicobacter stay or making it go will affect any individual person, said microbiologist Stanley Maloy of San Diego State University. But it is clear that a possible link between Parkinsons disease and the stomach bacterium can no longer be ignored.

Theres enough solid data that it would be wrong not to look into it more closely, Maloy said.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...nson’s

Glynis

 

[redo]

The whole treatment seems really simple. It's described here and here. And equipment can be bought here or here (I am not affiliated with any of those, nor do I make any money linking, just so that's clear :Retro smile


If it's all done in a closed system, then the procedure wouldn't be much different from a normal enema. And people do them all the time. It's a whole industry devoted to it.

Here's a group discussing fecal transplant
http://www.ei-resource.org/community/eir-community/groups/viewgroup/1-home-fecal-transplants/

 

[redo]

Borody also used Polyethylene glycol (orally) before the treatment. Brand names are Carbowax/Makrogol/Endofalk/Macrogol depending on where you live. And Borody also used larger amounts, 200-300 grams (instead of 50), diluted in 200-300 ml salt water.

 

[redo]

Here's a yet another article about it. Haven't had time to read through it though. I have been thinking perhaps Loperamide would aid, cause it help hold everything in.

 

[redo]

Judging from this blog post, it seems like it's possible to get cured from c. difficile by just inserting the tube into the stomach
http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/12/fecal_transplants_to_cure_clos.php
I haven't read the source of the blog post yet though.

30.5.2011, "Twenty-five milliliters of the transplant stool suspension was drawn up in a syringe and instilled into the stomach via the nasogastric tube. The nasogastric tube was then flushed with 25 mL of sterile 0.9 N saline and removed. ", so it didn't have to do to the duodenum to cure them (from c.diff).

 

[redo]

If someone would want to try out this treatment, here's what I'd do:

There are thousands of colonics clinics across the nation. All of them have much experience with hard to treat patients, such as Crohn's, Ulcerative Colitis etc.

I'd first email them, and show them the results of the small study done on Ulcerative Colitis patients. It's located here:
www.cdd.com.au/pdf/publications/paper17.pdf

Chances are the colonics staff would get thrilled over reading it, because most care deeply about their patients, and that seems like a possible way out for UC patients, although the study is done on just 6 patients (many have totally recovered that way, just search UC message boards).

Then, after screening the donor, checking if he/she's healthy, I'd write to them again, I'd show them the Borody results on Parkinson's, MS, RA and CFS patients (see first post in this thread). Then I'd tell them that I'd like to try exactly the same as them, and that I am willing to accept the risks associated with a treatment which still only has been used (successfully) on a handful of Parkinson's/MS/RA/CFS patients.

Then, the treatment is really simple. Bascially, it's just the same as the colonics staff always do, it's just that instead of filling the bag with what they normally do, it's filled with "the ultimate probiotic mixture", or feces if you will. It's been done on thousands of c.difficile patients across the globe. It's less common in the US, but more common in Europe and Australia. There's a study from Finland coming out soon showing efficiacy and safety of the treatment for c.diff. I'll post when it gets published. Big pharma isn't out to help science along on this one, because if it's a cure, there's no money to gain on this one...

 

[redo]

The treatment is really easy. If the patient would ask the donor to do the preparation, the patient would get to see or smell anything. The patient would the get the ready prepared mix in the non-see through colonics bag, the patient would lie on the belly, just like in the instruction video below. And well, when the treatment begins, it would be the a tube being inserted into the anus, which -- of course -- already has some feces in it. So it would be mixing feces with feces. If it's safe enough to use on c.diff., it's safe enough that I would give it a go.

[video=youtube;a_VDG_3-FBQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_VDG_3-FBQ[/video]

 

[redo]

Another study showing that clostridium bacterias in the gut can be killed with fecal bacteriopthery administrated via nasogastric tube (thereby reaching the small intestines)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20547640
I had some worries that the stomach acid perhaps would kill off the new bacteria, but apperantly it isn't so.

 

[redo]

Anyone who knows which pathogens to get the donor tested for before the treatment? I guess the list included in the study descriptions are non standard. Anyone who'd care to ask Silverman?

 

[redo]

Here's Borody's self-administration protocol:
http://www.ei-resource.org/media/kunena/attachments/63/Home Infusion 2007.doc

 

[MonkeyMan]

If someone would want to try out this treatment, here's what I'd do:

There are thousands of colonics clinics across the nation. All of them have much experience with hard to treat patients, such as Crohn's, Ulcerative Colitis etc.

I'd first email them, and show them the results of the small study done on Ulcerative Colitis patients. It's located here:
www.cdd.com.au/pdf/publications/paper17.pdf

Chances are the colonics staff would get thrilled over reading it, because most care deeply about their patients, and that seems like a possible way out for UC patients, although the study is done on just 6 patients (many have totally recovered that way, just search UC message boards).

Hi Redo--

I am interested in this procedure and I think your suggestion is a good one!!

Question for readers of this forum: has anyone tried this procedure? I'm a bit reluctant, for various reasons, and I'm wondering if anyone here has any experiences they can share.

Thanks!

Drew

 

[Glynis Steele]

Tom Borody talks at the bottom of this article. Fecal transplant for Inflammatory Bowel Disease also mentioned here, scroll down.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2011) Growing evidence for the effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplants as a treatment for patients with recurrent bouts of Clostridium difficile (C.difficile) associated diarrhea is presented in three studies -- including a long-term follow-up of colonoscopic fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) for recurrent C. difficile Infection that included 77 patients from five different states -- unveiled at the American College of Gastroenterology's (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington, DC.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a fourth study, investigators from the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Australia explored fecal bacterial transplantation as a treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. While this is a new area of research, results of this study show success in treating IBD when the fecal transplant is done recurrently.

The first study, "Long-term Follow-up of Colonoscopic Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) for Recurrent C. difficile Infection (RCDI)," included 77 patients from five different states (RI, NY, OK, CA,WA) who previously had a colonoscopic fecal microbiota transplant at least three months ago for recurrent C. difficile infection, and found that FMT was successful in 70 out of 77 patients (91 percent) who were on average elderly, debilitated and had undergone multiple failed treatments, including antibiotic and probiotic therapies. Additionally, in six of the remaining seven patients, a single two-week course of vancomycin or a two-week vancomycin course plus one further FMT resulted in cure (98 percent).

"Many of these patients we followed up with had been ill for a long time, but once they underwent the fecal microbiota transplant their response to the treatment was quick and their symptoms improved on average in about six days," said investigator Mark H. Mellow, MD, FACG, of INTERGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma. The average duration of illness for these patients was 11 months, but after the procedure patients continued to improve and --without subsequent antibiotic treatment--did not have a recurrence of C. difficile infection during follow-up (on average , 17 months), according to Dr. Mellow and his team of co-investigators which included a leading pioneer of fecal microbiota transplantation, Lawrence J. Brandt, MD, MACG, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Results from a meta-analysis by researchers at the University of Toledo Medical Center were also unveiled, providing further evidence of the effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplantation. "Fecal Bacteriotherapy Works for Clostridium difficile Infection -A Meta-Analysis," reviewed the cases of 148 patients who had received fecal transplants for C. difficile infection. Follow-up ranged from 10 days to 62 months after the transplant, with an average follow-up of 1 year. Fecal transplant had an overall success rate of 85.4 percent, according to researchers, who also concluded that the procedure was a safe and effective treatment option for C. difficile infection.

Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that causes infection leading to diarrhea and is most often related to antibiotic use during medical treatment. A major cause of morbidity and increasing health care costs among hospitalized patients, C. difficile infections have dramatically increased in recent years, with 500,000 cases in the United States annually and approximately 15,000 deaths each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Up to 25 percent of patients will have a recurrence of C. difficile infection, and a proportion will be refractory to antibiotics. C. difficile is especially dangerous for patients with weakened immune systems such as the elderly and those with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Therapies for this difficult-to-treat subpopulation include antibiotics, probiotics, toxin-binding medications, active vaccination, intravenous immunoglobon, and fecal microbiota transplant, for which the evidence has been mounting as an effective rescue for recurrent and refractory cases of C. difficile associated diarrhea.

"While the concept of fecal transplantation may sound unpleasant to some, patient acceptance of this treatment is growing, especially when they have been suffering for months with recurrent C. difficile," said Dr. Mellow. "When we asked patients in our study about their choice of treatment if their infection recurred, 53 percent said fecal transplant would be their first choice for treatment."

In a related study also unveiled at the ACG meeting, "Clostridium difficile Infection in Ulcerative Colitis: Increased Risk of Colectomy and Postoperative Infectious Complications," researchers from the University of Calgary found that patients with ulcerative colitis who were diagnosed with C. difficile were significantly less likely to respond to medical treatment and as a result require a colectomy when they diagnosed with C. difficile in the hospital or within 90 days of admission. In addition, patients with ulcerative colitis who had concomitant C. difficile, preoperatively were at a higher risk of infectious complications following a colectomy.

Researchers Find Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Effective For Treatment of IBD

With the growing success of fecal transplantation for C.Difficile, researchers have started to explore the effectiveness of this procedure for other serious conditions, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). A second study, "Reversal of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) with Recurrent Fecal Microbiota Transplants (FMT)," reports successful treatment of severe mixed IBD using recurrent fecal microbiota transplants in three patient cases.

In Case 1, a 19-year old female with an 11-year history of severe IBD and who presented with worsening symptoms including bloody diarrhea and inflamed, ulcerated mucosa , and was considering a colectomy, experienced symptom improvement within several days after receiving FMT. She underwent FMT initially via colonoscopy in July 2009 then by seven daily rectal FMT and 26 weekly FMT's. Follow-up colonoscopy revealed no gross inflammation or edema, with the patient remaining clinically well.
In Case 2, a 23- year old male with a five-year history of steroid and anti-TNF? refractory ulcerative colitis presented with bloody diarrhea more than 20 times per day, anal fissures, severe abdominal pain and joint pain. Pre-FMT colonoscopy -- showed severe disease of the left colon with marked cecal inflammation. He underwent daily rectal FMT for the first month, followed by infusions of lessening frequency until he reached 1 FMT/6 weeks. He reported resolution of bleeding 1-2 weeks post-FMT, and formed stool at 1 month post-FMT, resumed work, study activities and regained weight. Colonoscopy at one year showed no histological inflammation but occasional pseudopolyps in the cecum and ascending colon.
In Case 3, a 57-year old female with a nine- year history of 5-ASA antibiotics, probiotics and immunosuppressant refractory ulcerative proctitis in spite of treatment. After training in our clinic, she performed 69, initially daily, then weekly rectal FMT with virtually immediate resolution of diarrhea, bleeding and mucus. Follow-up colonoscopy showed no visible or histological inflammation and she has remained off all therapy for the last four years.
FMT may act as an antagonist to etiological infective agent(s) and aid in re-establishing depleted bacterial species, thereby reversing IBD, according to researchers from the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Australia.

Commenting on the cases of FMT in IBD, lead researcher Thomas Borody, MD, PhD, FACG, said, "the rapid response of FMT and lack of adverse effects make FMT a viable option for treatment-refractory patients and is certainly an added option for those facing colectomy."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111031114945.htm

 

[kheopz]

hey guys,
I too got very excited about this method

I am thinking of trying it but its not something you get at every hospital you know..
There is one doctor in norway who have used it on clostridia colitis patients with very good effect. He had used it more experimentally on ibs patients which had giardia related onset aswell and 50 % of these had
cfs.He reported that they saw some effect. He seemed to be open to try it with more CFS patients. Maybe time to ask in the light of the new research findings of luge and mella, a general heightened awareness and accept.

 

[GhostGum]

This reminds me of this guys blog I came across a while ago, he documents his whole intestinal saga's, the stuff about fecal transplant starts at part 7.

http://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/

A quite informative blog on gut health in general.

 

[*GG*]

I saw this article the other day, have not read it:

http://news.yahoo.com/fecal-transplants-show-promise-gastrointestinal-ills-131204240.html

GG