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This article has been in the making for a long time.
Back in 2011, a reader emailed me with the most incredible story. She said that she had healed herself of severe gut dysbiosis in a matter of days at home, on her own, with no professional guidance. The life altering gut problems she was experiencing started after the birth of her child and were the result of extensive antibiotic treatment she had received during and after the birth.
Try as she might, she simply could not fix her gut with a nutrient dense, traditional diet which included fermented foods and probiotic supplementation.
She tried everything but was still miserable.
Desperate and willing to try anything to regain her health, Melanie (not her real name) decided to try an at-home fecal transplant using the pure, probiotic rich stool from her exclusively breastfed baby. She had read about the astounding success hospitals were having with this novel treatment for patients with intractable C-diff infections – cases that were completely unresponsive to antibiotics. Half a million Americans get Clostridium difficile, or C-diff, infections each year. 14,000 of them die and the ones who don’t can endure long term nausea, cramping and diarrhea so bad it is often disabling.
Melanie performed what can best be described as a fecal home enema on herself which had the result of improving her gut situation so much that she felt almost completely normal after a single treatment! As time went on, she continued to give herself fecal enemas on an as needed basis and experienced a turnaround in her health that can only be described as astounding.
When I first read Melanie’s story, I was hesitant to write about it as it was so incredibly “out there”. I didn’t doubt her story for one minute and even discussed the situation with her on the phone, but I just didn’t think it was the right time to pen an article about it.
Today, fecal transplants are becoming ever more commonplace and it’s time we all realize that bacteriotherapy, even DIY ones such as what Melanie did, really are the next big thing to help people turn around their severely compromised gut function as we as a modern society brace for a world where antibiotics routinely fail for life threatening infections.
There’s now even an independent stool bank called OpenBiome in Massachusetts that sells healthy poop samples to those that need them.
Poop Pills: Fecal Transplants Made Easy
In the early days just a few years ago when fecal transplants were initially developed, this treatment required hospitalization and invasive procedures such as colonoscopies or throat tubes.
Now, a new procedure, devised by Dr. Thomas Louie, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Calgary, makes the process as easy as popping a pill.
The process involves taking donor stool usually from a healthy relative and sending it off to a lab to be processed. At the lab, food is removed from the stool, beneficial bacteria is extracted, and it is thoroughly cleaned. It is then packed into triple-coated gel capsules which ensures that they won’t dissolve until they reach the desired destination – in the intestines.
“There’s no stool left – just stool bugs. These people are not eating poop,” Dr. Louie said of the treatment.
For patients suffering from C-diff infections, they are given an antibiotic to kill off as much C-diff as possible a few days before the treatment with the poop pills. In addition, the morning of the treatment, the patients have a cleansing water enema to allow the new bacteria coming in via the oral fecal transplant to have “a clean slate” to repopulate the gut with beneficial microbes.
The single treatment requires the patient to down 24-36 capsules in one sitting.
Do the poop pills work?
Oh yes, it does – with flying colors!
Dr. Louie described the results of his work at IDWeek, an infectious disease conference in San Francisco. Of 27 patients treated all who had experienced at least 4 C-diff infections in the past, not a single one had a C-diff relapse after treatment with the poop pills!
Margaret Corbin, one of Dr. Louie’s patients, had this to say about her suffering with C-diff and recovery:
“It lasted for two years. It was horrible. I thought I was dying. I couldn’t eat. Every time I ate anything or drank water I was into the bathroom. I never went anywhere, I stayed home all the time.”
Ms. Corbin’s daughter served as her donor and after a single treatment with the poop pills made by Dr. Louie two years ago, Corbin said, “I’ve been perfectly fine since.”
Since this treatment is not drug based and doesn’t make the pharmaceutical industry any money, no doubt it will be an uphill battle to have the FDA quickly approve the use of poop pills to help the treatment win widespread, conventional adoption by most doctors. The truth is that the FDA is downright hostile to this treatment and cracking down on doctors who perform it for their patients, so if this is something you feel you could benefit from, you may just need to go the DIY route as described below.
DIY Fecal Transplants When Poop Pills Not an Option
Below is the how-to video of a Mother who has used at home treatments (similar to what Melanie did) to help eliminate her daughter’s debilitating gut problems and get her off strong medications. She demonstrates exactly how to do an at home fecal transplant using a simple, low cost enema bottle available over the counter at the pharmacy.
A small study has already shown at home fecal transplantation using an enema to be completely safe and highly effective.
If you feel more comfortable with written instructions, here are directions from Dr. David Williams’ newsletter “How to Perform a Fecal Transplant” using an enema bag.
A suitable donor shouldn’t have any history of gastrointestinal disease, any malignancy, or a history of antibiotic use or hospitalization within the past three months. The donor’s blood gets tested for hepatitis A, B, and C, HIV, and syphilis. And, their stool is tested for pathogens, parasites, and C. difficile. Typically, a family member is selected since they have been in close proximity with the patient and share the same infectious risk factors, which minimizes risk.
To do the procedure, you need the following items in addition to a fresh stool sample:
- A probiotic that should be taken before the transplant by the patient (not the donor), and for at least 60 days following. I suggest staying on it for life.
- A four-day prescription taken by the patient for either metronidazole 500 mg (orally three times per day), or vancomycin 125 mg (orally four times per day) to sterilize or wipe out the bacteria in the colon. The antibiotic needs to be stopped 24 to 48 hours before the procedure.
- At least 200 mL of normal sterile saline solution (found at any pharmacy or online).
- A standard 2-quart enema bag kit.
- A kitchen blender.
The best time to perform the procedure is in the morning following the first bowel movement of the day.
- Combine 50 mL of solid stool obtained from the donor immediately before the transplant (less than 30 minutes) with 200 mL saline solution in the blender.
- Mix in the blender until liquefied.
- Pour the entire mixture into the enema bag.
Have the patient lie on the left side and administer the enema per kit instructions. The patient should remain in that position for as long as possible to avoid defecation. The patient should not feel any pain or discomfort outside of the normal sensations experienced during an enema. If diarrhea occurs within one hour, the procedure can be immediately repeated, but a fresh stool sample will need to be used.
*Please note that you do not have to do the antibiotics before the fecal transplant if you don’t want to. All of the readers who have emailed me about the stunning success they have had with DIY fecal transplants chose to skip the meds beforehand.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources:
Success of self-administered home fecal transplantation for chronic Clostridium difficile infection
My son (7 months) was born by emergency C-section and I was scared into allowing antibiotics on him because he was preemie and I was “GBS unknown”. He is almost EBF (we started letting him taste/play with foods a week or two ago, I’m not sure he’s actually eaten any!). My diet was fairly conventional until he was 5 months, then I switched to mostly primal.
I loathe the loss of a natural vaginal birth, but this is what we have. Would it be a terribly bad idea for him to be a donor?
I am not impressed with this idea, not as DIY anyway. Our health systems have gotten so far out of hand with c-dif, mersa and ecoli, it’s insane. I am all for holistic and avoid anything medical at all cost. I don’t think I could go this far, even with someone’s poo, I trust. Take mass amounts of good probiotics, raw kefir, kombucha, fermented veggies.
There was an article in MACLEANS magazine a couple of months ago. Although it does sound disgusting, I must admit that it makes a lot of sense. A lady who had C-diff, was healed through this process.
Sarah, this is beyond fascinating! I’ve heard of fecal transplants and their benefits but have never looked in to it fully. I have a 13 month old EBF baby that was birthed vaginally. She eats only traditional foods (raw milk kefir, bone broth, organic fruit/veggies, grass fed meat, etc) and is very healthy. I, however, am overweight and not as healthy as I’d like to be. I’ve been eating way better since breastfeeding but have felt I have gut dybosis for some time from all the antibiotics I took over the years and sugar I have eaten. Would she be a good donor if I have gut dybosis? I see Melanie was helped with the same problems and am extremely encouraged! Love your site!
I’m confused on why the lady in the video has had to do this for the past 9 months and plans on doing it indefinitely, when many the comments say that one dose is enough. Why would she have to continue doing it?
I was thinking that there could be a few different reasons; perhaps because her own donation stool was not optimally healthy; perhaps the medications the girl was taking were harmful to the colonies that they were trying to encourage; perhaps some people just have a tougher time establishing appropriate colonies compared to others.
Wow Sarah ! Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I wish I’d known about this two years ago when my son was ill. Here is a youtube of a news report on the subject featuring Prof Borody and two case studies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDcia_uqf3k
Hi Sarah
Thank you for this fascinating article. Do you think it would help someone with a leaky gut..? Are the ‘leaks’ in the small or large intestine or both..?
Thanks
Victoria
I know that leaky gut syndrome effects the small intestines. I don’t think you can have leaky gut and not have small intestine involvement. However I am not at all sure about if the large intestine is a part of the problem also or if it may be excluded.
Having said that, I don’t see how getting good bugs into your large intestine could possibly be bad for someone with leaky gut. Keep researching and meditating on it!
I’m leaving a comment so I can hopefully subscribe to notifications of future comments. This is all highly of interest to me since I have a daughter with ongoing digestive problems which a gluten free and whole foods diet hasn’t helped much. I am looking into the potato starch.
Don’t mean to be a tease. I think potato starch has huge potential for gut health. Much of the research shows that almost everybody can process up to about 40 grams worth per day–this is the amount that could naturally be extracted from 1 large potato, so it’s not like your are taking a mega-dose of an unnatural substance.
If you try it, start with 1-2TBS a day for a couple weeks to get your flora used to it, then increase. Over 4TBS is never needed. Not harmful, just wasteful…not enough microbes in anyone’s gut to handle more than 40-50g (5-6TBS).
Contrast 40 grams of potato starch (found in 1 potato) to 40 grams of opther prebiotics like psyllium or inulin. I don’t know you could eat enough real food to get 40 grams. You’d need like 4 pounds of onion.
I don’t want to say too much, I’d rather have you all do some research on your own and see if you come up with the same conclusion, but I think all the probiotics, poop pills, and fecal transplants in the world won’t work until the environment in the large intestine is right for them to grow. Resistant Starch gets the environment right. Potato starch is probably the best source of resistant starch. Easy dots to connect. Just be sure to use the potato starch cold, not cooked–very important!
If you are afraid potato starch is a highly procesed item, look into potato starch production. Just lots of water and filtering. It’s a very pure product, naturally.
I hope this helps someone!
I just got my potato starch today from Azure Standard. I just had a dose, and it doesn’t even taste bad. This would be such a simple and cheap option–I am excited to see if it helps. I am going to take it as well as give it to my daughter. It is great to find something I don’t have to worry about giving a child. The worst it could do, is nothing!
I know this is going to sound totally crazy, but I think I found the solution.
Most of the bacteria that we want from a fecal transplant is bifidobacterium, lactobacterium, or one of the clostridium species, such as Clostridium butyricum, but not c. diff.
All of these are probably already present in your large intestine, the problem is they are crowded out by pathogenic bacteria and the pathogenic bacteria have created an environment which is inhospitable to beneficial bacteria (pH, etc…).
Here’s how to turn the tide: Prebiotics. But which ones? Inulin? FOS? GOS? Nope! Resistant Starch.
The absolute best place to get resistant starch is from raw potato. Luckily, it’s cheap and easy to find raw potato starch–you don’t need to eat a raw potato!
Just go to any store that sells such things and buy some potato starch–not potato flour. It should say ‘unmodified’ on the label, otherwise it’s not food grade starch, it’s glue.
Mix 1-4TBS of potato starch with water, milk, yogurt or anything cold–heat will destroy the resistant starch. Start with 1-2TBS for a couple weeks as it may produce a bit of gas if you start too high. Work your way up to 4TBS a day, then back off to 1-2TBS a day or 3-4TBS every other day, for long-term maintenance of gut flora.
This resistant starch source will flood the large intestine with a fermentable substrate and cause a chain reaction of completely changing the environment of the gut to favor growth of beneficial bacteria and stop the expansion of pathogenic bacteria.
1TBS of raw potato starch contains about 8 grams of resistant starch. Hundreds of studies out there on effects of 20-40g/day of resistant starch and many used potato starch as a control. I just skipped a few steps and started using potato starch instead of the manufactured starches they were trying to turn into expensive medicine.
Don’t take my word, do some inventive Google searches: ‘resistant starch, gut health, potato starch’ together should get quite a few hits. ‘potato starch, RS2, and bifidobacteria’ should be fun, too.
Enjoy!
Is there a diff starch you could recommend for those with potato sensitivity?
Hi Tim, thanks for your comments as they were most informative. Have you ever heard of “Edible Clay” or one of the product names, called “TERRAMIN”. Here is just one of many links on the product: Check it out.
Rgds, Peter
Tim, Picked up the potato starch tonight for my son with UC. Is there any cold drink it can’t be mixed with? He’s a fan of acidic beverages like o.j. and apple cider or juice. Just want to make sure those won’t disrupt the effect of the starch. Thanks for your informative post! It’s certainly worth a try and MUCH more appealing than a fecal transplant!
Dr Brody in Sydney Australia has been ground breaking in this area. Over a decade ago my brother sold his poop five days a week for this procedure. His flatmate couldn’t join in cause his poop wasn’t good enough (after having lived in Papua New Guinea). Many funny family jokes about this job of his!