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A friend of mine has his microbiome wiped out by heavy antibiotics administration while fighting colon cancer. After his cancer went into remission, he suffered

A friend of mine has his microbiome wiped out by heavy antibiotics administration while fighting colon cancer. After his cancer went into remission, he suffered greatly from IBS. It got bad enough that his doctors thought his cancer had returned and started him on chemo again, despite negative results when testing for cancer. That just made things worse. Eventually he decided the antibiotics caused the problem and that FMT was a possible solution. It took him a long time to find a doctor who would treat him with FMT; no one in the US or Canada would do it and he wound up having to go to London for a month. The change was immediate. His IBS disappeared completely, he's able to eat foods again that he couldn't touch for several years, he's reversed his drastic weight loss and is healthy again.

xvcyiux 10y ago
out of interest, where exactly did your friend get their FMT done ?
- DougWebb 10y ago
  I don't know exactly, and wouldn't be at liberty to say if I did. It wasn't easy for him to find a doctor willing to treat him, because of his cancer. He's now the subject of an ongoing experimental study though, and hopes the results will be published soon and based on that he hopes the doors will open to more people getting this treatment.
theprotocol 10y ago
I may need to do this. I've become extremely intolerant to ~80% of food types. I'm told it's "IBS" but it's accompanied by neurological symptoms. I've seen dozens of doctors and gotten nowhere (the most "promising" diagnosis was abdominal epilepsy).
- emodendroket 10y ago
  I'm not sure why a fecal matter transplant would help if you're having neurological issues.
  - theprotocol 10y ago
    They're a reaction to food. Limiting my diet eliminates them completely. My doctors agree that it's related to food intolerance. What they cannot figure out is a firm diagnosis and treatment. The problem is that a very diverse set of foods can cause these reactions for me. It isn't as simple as, say, eliminating dairy. My diet is now very limited, to the point of affecting my general state of health. I'm subsisting on plain chicken, rice, spoonfuls of coconut milk, and a "healthy" fat supplement (containing monounsaturated fat), in addition to 2 restaurant dishes which I can tolerate (I've tried dozens). If I make a dietary mistake, I basically end up with intestinal symptoms accompanied by neurological symptoms (including externally visible twitches among other things) , not to mention typical allergy-like symptoms i.e. throat constriction, sinus inflammation etc, although I'm told it's not a true allergy, but an intolerance. The doctors I've seen have been stumped. But there's no question it all comes down to the gut. I've heard "abdominal epilepsy" being thrown around (after having done numerous tests) but things have not advanced from there. Other ideas were histamine intolerance, celiac sprue, or crohn's disease but the latter two proved back negative after a small intestine biopsy. Probiotics do improve my symptoms a bit. Somewhat paradoxically (but not really when you think about it), certain antibiotics also clear up my symptoms temporarily. The neurological symptoms are inseparable from the abdominal ones; they always happen at the same time, and it's always primarily an intestinal issue in terms of how it begins (stomach upset after eating something I'm intolerant to). To top things off, I'm underweight due to what I'm told is malabsorption. I've tried to make this post concise but there's a lot going on (and yet a lot I did not mention). I hope this explains why I'm considering FMT.
    - DougWebb 10y ago
      My friend could have written everything you said. He had narrowed down to a very limited diet and lost a lot of weight because almost everything he ate either came back up or rushed right through him. He hadn't mentioned neurological issues, but he did switch to working at home full time to isolate himself, so that might have been a factor as well. I'd strongly recommend trying FMT. Whatever downsides and risks there are, can't be any worse than what you're going through.

xvcyiux 10y ago

out of interest, where exactly did your friend get their FMT done ?

DougWebb 10y ago
I don't know exactly, and wouldn't be at liberty to say if I did. It wasn't easy for him to find a doctor willing to treat him, because of his cancer. He's now the subject of an ongoing experimental study though, and hopes the results will be published soon and based on that he hopes the doors will open to more people getting this treatment.

theprotocol 10y ago

I may need to do this. I've become extremely intolerant to ~80% of food types. I'm told it's "IBS" but it's accompanied by neurological symptoms. I've seen dozens of doctors and gotten nowhere (the most "promising" diagnosis was abdominal epilepsy).

emodendroket 10y ago
I'm not sure why a fecal matter transplant would help if you're having neurological issues.
- theprotocol 10y ago
  They're a reaction to food. Limiting my diet eliminates them completely. My doctors agree that it's related to food intolerance. What they cannot figure out is a firm diagnosis and treatment. The problem is that a very diverse set of foods can cause these reactions for me. It isn't as simple as, say, eliminating dairy. My diet is now very limited, to the point of affecting my general state of health. I'm subsisting on plain chicken, rice, spoonfuls of coconut milk, and a "healthy" fat supplement (containing monounsaturated fat), in addition to 2 restaurant dishes which I can tolerate (I've tried dozens). If I make a dietary mistake, I basically end up with intestinal symptoms accompanied by neurological symptoms (including externally visible twitches among other things) , not to mention typical allergy-like symptoms i.e. throat constriction, sinus inflammation etc, although I'm told it's not a true allergy, but an intolerance. The doctors I've seen have been stumped. But there's no question it all comes down to the gut. I've heard "abdominal epilepsy" being thrown around (after having done numerous tests) but things have not advanced from there. Other ideas were histamine intolerance, celiac sprue, or crohn's disease but the latter two proved back negative after a small intestine biopsy. Probiotics do improve my symptoms a bit. Somewhat paradoxically (but not really when you think about it), certain antibiotics also clear up my symptoms temporarily. The neurological symptoms are inseparable from the abdominal ones; they always happen at the same time, and it's always primarily an intestinal issue in terms of how it begins (stomach upset after eating something I'm intolerant to). To top things off, I'm underweight due to what I'm told is malabsorption. I've tried to make this post concise but there's a lot going on (and yet a lot I did not mention). I hope this explains why I'm considering FMT.
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    My friend could have written everything you said. He had narrowed down to a very limited diet and lost a lot of weight because almost everything he ate either came back up or rushed right through him. He hadn't mentioned neurological issues, but he did switch to working at home full time to isolate himself, so that might have been a factor as well. I'd strongly recommend trying FMT. Whatever downsides and risks there are, can't be any worse than what you're going through.