BY DONNA WESTFALL
CREDIT TO DR. MERCOLA
There’s just no other way to put it. Talking, discussing, researching and writing about chronic diarrhea is the pits. The only reason to do it is to bring awareness to a condition that at one time or another all of us have experienced.
What happens when you have to take an antibiotic? Usually you end up in the bathroom filling that toilet bowl. And, sometimes no amount of yogurt, rice, bananas or cheese helps.
It’s called Clostridium difficile or C. diff for short. That’s a condition that causes all the good and the bad bacteria in your intestinal track to be wiped out. About 500,000 cases a year are linked to 14,000 deaths per the CDC – Centers for Disease Control .
Serious enough to create an icky cure and it’s called FMT = fecal microbiota transplantation . It may just save your life.
Can you imagine asking your best friend for their stool so you can stick it up your you know what?
Sound gross enough? Let’s get beyond the ick factor and talk real life.
You’re in an auto accident. You’re in the hospital. They put you on antibiotics. A series of antibiotics Antibiotics which kill harmful bacteria also weaken the beneficial, healthy bacteria percolating in the colon. With the colon’s defenses down, C. diff grown rampant releasing a toxin and inflaming the colon. results are diarrhea, stomach pain, vomiting and sometimes death.
Per Dr. Mercola’s newsletter:
“A fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) involves taking donor feces (the donor is typically a spouse or relative…) and transferring it to the patient during a colonoscopy. In this way, the patient receives a transplanted population of healthy bacteria that can combat the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria.”
With a 90% primary cure rate without recurrence in 90 days, it’s certainly a procedure with excellent odds. Remember, there are times that antibiotics are needed. However, the continued, repeated use of antibiotics does play havoc with your colon.
“Any time you take an antibiotic, it is important to take probiotics to repopulate the beneficial bacteria in your gut that are killed by the antibiotic along with the pathogenic bacteria. And you certainly don’t need a doctor’s prescription or permission for this,” writes Dr. Mercola.
In some cases where a spouse or relative just won’t work, friends have been known to help out.
