
Faecal transplant effectively treats recurrent or unresponsive Clostridium diff - DanBC
https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article?id=SIG-5000506&utm_content=buffere8198&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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jacobkg
I have had C Diff. It is extraordinarily unpleasant. In addition to the normal
symptoms it also came with extreme fatigue and a weird sense of doom about the
future. The antibiotics need to be taken every 6 hours (limiting your ability
to sleep) and gave me really creepy dreams. Being stuck with recurrent C Diff
sounds miserable and I'm so glad that people in that position have a way out

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srednalfden
I don’t want to make you relive the dreams, but can you elaborate on “creepy”?

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PoachedSausage
Think of the most weird fever dream you've had and that is probably similar.

I think one of the stranger fever dream I've had was sometime in college when
I was learning about complex numbers, the red standby LED on the TV in my room
seemed to be a portal into the complex plane one feverish night.

Having also tried a number psychedelics, fever dreams do have quite a
different quality to them.

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cdiffthrow
Throwaway account -- I had recurrant c-diff for the better part of 2 years.
For a while I had accepted that I would just be taking Vancomycin for the rest
of my life. Thankfully I was able to get into a study at the U of Minnesota
doing transplants. The first one didn't 'stick' and the c-diff repopulated
within 6 months, but after the second one I've been clear of it. Horrible
stuff. Worsened my Crohn's disease by a large amount.

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kazinator
Ancient Chinese yellow soup!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant#Hi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant#History)

Orally administered, too.

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stevebmark
Fluoroquinolone antibiotics (cipro, levaquin, etc) are dangerous and horrific,
and irreversibly destroy gut bacteria. This article is about fluoroquinolones,
which are well documented to _cause_ C.Diff infections because they destroy
most gut bacteria _except_ C.Diff, allowing it to overrun.

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jungletime
I wonder to what extent is Obesity contagious. If you can improve your gut
bacteria, surely you can make it worse. Can you pick up gut bacteria from
Obese people. Maybe going to the gym helps you lose weight because you touch
surfaces and pick up bacteria from fit people. And so on. Just conjecture.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I don’t think obesity itself is contagious (unless you’re mucking about in an
obese person’s fecal matter). My hunch is antibiotic usage disrupts your gut
biome enough that it pushes your energy extraction balance off, causing
obesity.

As a society, we abuse antibiotics in the aggregate (demanding it from health
care providers and pouring it into factory farms). It can’t possibly not be
disrupting our guy biome.

It also doesn’t help that the sugar lobby/industry is so powerful, and
sugar/corn syrup is in everything.

~~~
eru
I don't think it's the energy extraction that's changing, but people's set
points for weight.

> It also doesn’t help that the sugar lobby/industry is so powerful, and
> sugar/corn syrup is in everything.

Corn syrup ain't good, but we have fat people in other parts of the world,
too.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Rapidly increasing obesity rates seem to be associated with a first
world/western diet.

~~~
eru
Further investigation seems useful.

Eg anecdotally I can see people in India putting on the pounds much more than
Chinese---whether on the mainland or in South-East Asia like Singapore. But I
don't know the statistics off the top of my head, I only lived there.

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ilamont
_After initial “cure” of Clostridium difficile with antibiotics, about 15-25%
of patients develop a recurrence within a few days to several months. The
chance of a recurrence depends in large part on the type of antibiotic being
taken, such as Flagyl, Vanco, or Dificid, as well as the age of the patient.

This repeat infection can keep on recurring, even after multiple courses of
antibiotics. We have seen some unfortunate patients with 10 or more attacks of
C. diff in a two-year period. It can lead to chronic diarrhea, weight loss,
and diminished quality of life.

We think that recurrence of C. diff depends on a “Perfect Storm” of several
factors:

1\. Simultaneous failure of the immune system with inadequate antibody
formation

2\. Failure of the colonic flora to regenerate, owing to exposure to
antibiotics.

Failure of the immune system to generate an antibody response is quite common
after age 60. The older the patient, the weaker the response to an infection
or to vaccination_

[http://cdiff.in30minutes.com/recurrent-c-diff-why-does-c-
dif...](http://cdiff.in30minutes.com/recurrent-c-diff-why-does-c-diff-
sometimes-keep-coming-back/)

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jesperlang
This is a super interesting topic but the cynical side of me thinks it doesn't
get enough attention because you can't patent bacteria(?)..

For more on this, checkout the work of Martin Blaser

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwK_O0ahDKo&t=168](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwK_O0ahDKo&t=168)

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chmike
I new someone with serious repetitive (daily) diarrhea. Not treatment helped
and it lasted for years. Doctors had no solution. Don't know if it was
Clostridium Difficile. It started after taking a medication.

One day, a solution was found on Internet. It was to eat cheese made with raw
milk. After three months eating various cheese with raw milk every day, the
person had no more diarrhea. This has to be done in country with strict health
control on cheese production.

~~~
phonon
Drinking Kefir is easier and better.

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maxxxxx
I know two people who had serious problems for many years and recovered after
doing fecal transplants. Placebo or not, I would recommend it to people who
can't be helped by regular medicine. Certainly worth a try.

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amelius
There seems to be a correlation between gut balance and lifespan, in animal
models, [1]. I wonder if a suitable fecal transplant could (somehow) promote
longevity.

[1]
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116130646.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116130646.htm)

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BVthrowaway
I recall reading a similar clinical trial involving bacterial vaginosis. In
BV, vaginal bacteria are imbalanced and thus it was hypothesized that
transplanting healthy flora would be helpful.

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cpncrunch
No it doesnt. Placebo controlled trials show it has no effect. Im surprised at
the nhs for this shoddy review.

~~~
elsherbini
Here's a randomized trial with placebos that did work. I wasn't able to find
one where it didn't work.

[http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2545886/effect-
fecal-...](http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2545886/effect-fecal-
microbiota-transplantation-recurrence-multiply-recurrent-clostridium-
difficile-infection)

~~~
cpncrunch
I submitted on a while back. Will check later if people reverse the downvotes
and assume good faith.

~~~
AndrewDucker
You'll provide evidence for your claims if people down downvote you for making
claims without evidence?

I'm not terribly impressed by that approach.

~~~
cpncrunch
In my world people ask politely for refs or search for it themselves, rather
than downvoting first (which is saying "your comment isn't worth reading").

I got up out of bed, posted a comment and was going to look for the link later
if people asked. (I did a quick search and didn't find it). However, from the
comments here, it's pretty clear people aren't interested in the science.
Carry on...

