Saffron Cassaday suffered from ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) characterized by the following symptoms: painful inflammation and ulcers In the gastrointestinal tract — since she was diagnosed 15 years ago. “This is an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the colon,” the 36-year-old told Yahoo Life. “It can be quite painful.”
She says the burden of her illness affected her every day. She is one of the most common, debilitating symptoms Ulcerative colitis requires sudden and urgent bowel movements. “There were so-called ‘trigger situations’ where I panicked because I was stuck in traffic and thought I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom in time,” she says. At the airport, she felt that when the security lines and seatbelt signs were turned on as she boarded the plane, her symptoms would “send her into a vicious cycle” with “embarrassment and embarrassment.” “Sometimes I was scared to leave the house,” she says.
To make matters worse, the medications Casadei was taking to control her symptoms were becoming less and less effective. “Every year it felt like my condition was getting worse,” she says.
Then she read an article about a man. crohn’s disease And how his mother heard it Fecal microbiota transplantation, or FMT. This involves transferring a medically processed stool sample and all its accompanying healthy microorganisms and beneficial bacteria from a screened donor to the patient via an enema. Her mother then treated her son “DIY-style” using her own chair at home, Casaday said. “From there, I started doing research on my own and found out there were clinical trials of fecal transplants to treat IBD and many other conditions,” she says. “And these clinical trials have shown some promising results.”
However, she soon encountered an obstacle. Casaday couldn’t access this treatment because hers isn’t FDA-approved for ulcerative colitis. “I couldn’t get a doctor to help me,” she says. “But I figured if I could find a way to do this, there was a 30% chance it would help me.”
So Casaday did something his doctors didn’t recommend. She decided to take matters into her own hands in her DIY style, using her healthy partner (and now her husband) Al Muqaddam as a donor – which she Documented in her new film. Designer S***, “I felt like I was running out of options,” she says. “And I was prepared to take on some risk as a patient.”
As for how Casadei overcame the unpleasantness of collecting her partner’s stool, mixing it with water or saline and administering it to herself in an enema bottle, she said it was born out of desperation. says. “I look at this movie now and it makes me so sick I can’t believe I did that,” she said, adding: Just get it done. ”
And it seems to have worked. She has also been known to become pregnant after making “more than 100 fecal transfers” over a two-year period. put autoimmune diseases into remission — Casaday is currently showing no symptoms.
“I feel great,” she says. “I had no symptoms for about three and a half years, and my colonoscopy showed complete histological remission.” She added, “I really feel like I’ve got my life back. “I will,” he added.
What you need to know about FMT
First, the name. Dr. Ari GrinspanThe gastroenterologist and director of gastrointestinal microbial therapy at Mount Sinai Hospital told Yahoo Life that doctors are trying to change the name of fecal microbiota transplants, which is “a pretty bad thing.” Doctors at the department said they are using “intestinal microbiota transplantation” (IMT). , Instead. But regardless of the name, the purpose of this treatment is to take a screened donor’s healthy microbiome (“all microbes, not just bacteria”) and “transfer it to other people who don’t have a healthy microbiome.” “Giving it to people and trying to restore their microbiome.” A healthy gut microbiome leads to overall health benefits. ”
And it’s already been proven to treat a particularly bad infection of the colon called. temperature difference. “This works incredibly well to prevent this infection from causing further harm to patients,” Grinspun said. In fact, fecal transplantation is a “one-and-done” treatment. C. difference, This means that just one treatment is effective. standard of care For patients with recurrence temperature difference He points out that there is an infection.
There are also medicines (Voust), eliminates the ick factor. “This is still donor-derived stool that has been processed, freeze-dried and encapsulated, and can be prescribed to patients who have relapsed.” temperature difference Infectious diseases to prevent onset temperature difference “In the future,” he says.
standard antibiotics are temperature difference “We have a 30% to 40% chance of getting the job done,” he says, and fecal transplants can lead to “nearly a 90% cure rate.” He added: “This is a shocking difference.”
Comparing this to fecal transplantation for ulcerative colitis, a form of Cassady’s disease, Grinspun said about 25% of people improved, and 10% improved after taking a placebo. “We’re talking about there being a big difference,” he said. temperature difference “It’s a home run,” he says.
He noted that Casaday “chose to do something very dangerous, but she was lucky.” “I’m cautiously optimistic that her IMT will play a role in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, but it won’t play a significant role. This won’t be true for everyone.”
What other conditions can FMT treat?
Right now, everyone is looking at FMT as a potential treatment, Grinspun points out. Over 200 clinical trials I appreciate that ability. “Every medical field is paying attention, from gastrointestinal to IBS.” [irritable bowel syndrome]look at liver disease, look at Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, and people are looking at autism “And people are looking at obesity, diabetes, heart disease, allergic diseases and hair loss,” he says. “It covers the gamut.”
Grinspun says he’s excited about the potential of this treatment, but is reticent until more data shows it can actually help improve these symptoms and diseases. That’s what it means. “We fully expect this to not work in many of these situations, but it’s probably a hit here and there, and we could investigate that further,” he says. “But we don’t expect it to dramatically change how we treat these conditions.”
Grinspun said that while doctors are “excited” about fecal microbiota transplants, there is also “huge hype”, adding: “We need to do more research on this.”
What are the risks?
Grinspun said that what Casaday did, “what we call DIY FMT,” is never recommended because the treatment does come with some risks. “Forever, ever, ever,” he says.
However, when performed in a clinical setting, fecal transplantation is considered safe and well-tolerated. serious side effects If not properly screened, infections from other bacteria or viruses from the donor are rare.
To better understand the possible risks, doctors are also enrolling patients in a national registry to follow them for 10 years after fecal transplants, Grinspan said. “Did we develop something we weren’t expecting? Or if no one developed anything at all. That’s the question we hope to answer with this registry,” he says.
How can someone try FMT?
For those interested in fecal microbiota transplantation to improve health conditions C. difference, Grinspun and Cassaday agree that the best, and indeed the only, place to start is to find and participate in a clinical trial (you can find these trials at Masu). clinicaltrials.gov). “This is a biologic, it’s a drug,” Grinspun said. “This needs to be done in a safe and rigorous testing environment to make sure no one is hurt.”
That is, “we all share.” [Cassaday’s] “The excitement that there might be something here,” he says.