November 15, 2007

A controversial new treatment, which involves the transplantation of human waste, can treat cases of C. difficile infection. [...] only a handful of doctors in Canada are willing to undertake the unpleasant procedure which involves taking a healthy person's fecal matter and transplanting it into a person infected with C. difficile. [...]The procedure involves getting a close relative of the patient, such as a sibling, to donate several days-worth of stool. Louie tests the stool for diseases such as hepatitis and HIV and then mixes it with saline to create liquid feces. He then administers the stool to the patient through an enema.[...]
  • Do they not know which "good bacteria" are the cure? Why can't they isolate the good bacteria, culture it, and just inject that? I really felt for the woman who had to carry 5 days of fecal matter in an ice cream tub on a plane. No way I'd do that, even for someone I loved. Why didn't she fly to the treatment city 5 days early and collect her samples then? I must be cranky this afternoon...
  • Surely there is a way to somehow tie this thread into the recent cookie fad?
  • Rule 34.
  • > the woman who had to carry 5 days of fecal matter in an ice cream tub on a plane There's a sequence in a novel from the 70s or 80s in which the protagonist has to cross London by bus with his own fecal matter in a jar in his pocket. Does anyone remember this? Could be David Lodge or maybe Malcolm Bradbury.
  • Oh, poop!
  • I wish I had something intelligent to say, but I'm still taken aback at that picture of the square toilet seat.
  • Some people have big fat asses.
  • I think it was David Lodge How Far Can You Go, roryk (retitled Souls and Bodies in the USA for some obscure reason). If I remember rightly a doctor friend explains afterwards that they didn't actually need the whole bowel movement, just as much as would cover the end of the small spatula provided.
  • That sounds right Plegmund, thanks! And yes, he finds out that he's taken a much larger sample than was necessary.
  • As nasty a procedure as this must be, I think this is brilliantly simple. I'm glad I am not a fecal transplant technician.
  • No, only a pickle jar full to the brim will do. Two if possible.
  • And thrown from a moving vehicle.
  • More evidence that doctors must be stopped. Holy crap that is a square toilet. My worldview is rent!
  • Why do American square toilets suck compared to British ones?
  • Because Americans have much more demanding expectations with regard to customer service?
  • Because Americans have much more demanding excretions in their toilets?
  • German toilets have a little ledge where you can leave your turd. I think I read somewhere they like to weigh it or something.
  • What I loved about British toilets is that the flush handle is on the other side, so righties like me don't have to reach across the bowl to flush.