Apologies in advance as this is a disgusting one. Inspired by this New Scientist article:
“This means people are doing their own transplants at home, using little more than stools from a relative, a blender and an enema kit…People are making this in their basement,” says Smith."
What?!
A few questions immediately drop from the colon of imagination into the waiting pan of potential answers -
Is this what I think it is - shoving someone else’s poop up your own back passage? Surely there’s got to be a better way to treat…whatever people think this treats.
Why, dear God, why? Does it have a medical benefit or is it woo (or rhymes with woo)? Apparently it isn’t even regulated in the UK.
How popular is it and what are the risks? The obvious ones I can think of is a nasty infection and losing all your friends when you explain why that funny smell is coming from your basement.
The first paragraph of that article notes that it’s done for certain indications as an actual medical procedure (and that’s clarified at the start of the third paragraph). I’ve definitely heard of it being done as a legitimate medical practice before, and it looks like C. diff infection is the primary one, as well as irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, and others.
That being said, oh my GOD I would not do that as a home procedure. I mean, how do you know the person you’re getting the transplant from really has a healthy set of gut flora? And how do you know how much to transfuse, and how to “mix” it properly, and…?
Oh, and I’d expect that similar to other enema-type procedures, the person sits on the toilet.
The problem here is that you have know-it-all amateurs thinking they’re the equal or better of people with actual medical degrees. You just know this will end in tears sooner or later.
Yes, much like maggots and leeches, I’d prefer my therapeutic feces come from a clean lab which has grown and/or harvested the therapeutic material for that express purpose. Call me crazy, and sure, backyard maggots are probably just as good as lab raised maggots, but no fucking way are you going to DIY that on me.
(Also, medically supervised fecal transplants aren’t done from the bottom up, but from the top down, as I understand it. The small intestine can’t be accessed from the ass.)
It does, sort of - a tube is inserted down the esophagus and through the stomach and any other plumbing it needs to go through so the transplanted “material” goes directly where it is needed without bothering anything between outside and destination - no odors, no bad tastes, minimal squick.
I’ve heard of fecal implant therapy but don’t think I’ve ever worked at a place that did it. As for doing it at home, it sounds like it’s as much in the “woo” territory as urine therapy. You probably don’t want to know what that entails either.
What I don’t get is that if it’s all to do with the gut flora is why you need the actual…poop rather than just a culture of the bacteria which would seem just easier all round.
