Ibs And Fecal Transplant

[vyger]

There has been a flurry of new research into the importance of what is now called a microbiome. This is a term for the huge number of bacteria that are in and on a living organism, initially humans but now extending to all living things. As it turns out the bacteria that each of us host in our guts is a very important thing to our health. A few years ago Discover Magazine dedicated an entire issue to this topic. Research has now shown that the bacteria in our guts plays a huge factor in our lives. One of the ways this was first discovered was from research into breast milk and nursing infants. To make a long story short, there are some things in human breast milk that are undigestible to an infant. Initially they took those out of infant formula because they thought they were unnecessary, after all they couldn't be used by the baby. Over time though it was noted that infants on formula did not do as well as breast feed babies and they had a lot of stomach and intestine problems. After years of research they found that the undigestable stuff in breast milk didn't feed the baby but did feed bacteria in the gut. SO the babies that were nursed had much healthier microbiomes in their guts and these protected the infants from invasions of harmful bacteria.
Well putting 2 and 2 together it was discovered that the lack of a healthy microbiome in adults is a major cause of IBS and ulcerative colitis. This was finally shown for real when several people who were considered terminal in a hospital from Colitis that could not be cured were give fecal transplants from a healthy donor and they were completely cured in less than 48 hours. Reestablishing a health gut microbiome in people is now a recognized medical procedure. In a way it reminds me of the days when stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by stress. Now they know different. I am going to put some links with several articles about this at the end. Hopefully they will work.
Anyway, the purpose of this thread is not about people but cats. I have read many accounts of cats with IBS and other problems, bloody diarrhea, and on and on. It could very well be that cats are experiencing the same problems that people are, a bad batch of bacteria in their gut that needs to be replaced with better bacteria. Maybe if your cat has this problem you need to talk to and convince your vet to try a fecal transplant as a solution. I don't know about the DIY method, I think that could be problematic with a cat but maybe not. But as a potential solution to a lot of similar problems maybe we should help encourage the discussion of this . That is what I started this thread for, discussion into a solution for poopy problems. It works for people, why not for cats?

Fecal Transplantation (Bacteriotherapy) | Johns Hopkins Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Swapping Germs: Should Fecal Transplants Become Routine for Debilitating Diarrhea?

Fear Not the Fecal Transplant

Fecal transplant shows promise in IBD, other chronic conditions

https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/news/20151209/diy-fecal-transplant#1

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Fecal transplants has been discussed here before. Perhaps even done. I think I remember one member who even did it herself on her cat, which I would never dare to attempt, but so be it. Anyway, here are one thread where a discussion was had, starting with post #8: Antibiotic Resistant Clostridium Perf In Kittens

 

[vyger]

Fecal transplants has been discussed here before. Perhaps even done. I think I remember one member who even did it herself on her cat, which I would never dare to attempt, but so be it. Anyway, here are one thread where a discussion was had, starting with post #8: Antibiotic Resistant Clostridium Perf In Kittens

I did a search here before I started writing anything and it came up null. Maybe it just likes you better.
Anyway, I have read a lot of threads lately about the kinds of problems this might cure so I thought I would say something. Also nice to see that those are pretty recent.
I know many medical people, and I assume vets also, are a bit slow to try anything that is not the standard they learned in school. It's experimental, and a last resort is often the attitude. It took a lot of years to change the understanding that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria. So it might be a while before this starts to change also. But pushing vets to do research into it might help that process along. Of course there is another possible factor at play as always and that is the financial one. Poop is cheap, meds are not. Curing something pretty much permanently with a dose of healthy poop eliminates a lot of profit potential.

My cat Arrow is sitting staring at the screen looking at all the little moving, jumping imogies.

• 
• 
• We all should be so easily entertained.

 

[1 bruce 1]

We have a vet that has done fecal transplants on dogs and has some healthy donor dogs with cast iron guts. I haven't asked them about cats though.

 

[foxden]

I've been following a medical bulletin board/blog page lately.
I've seen information on that blog about use of fecal transplant for treatment of antibiotic resistant C. difficile caused diarrhea. This infection has been increasingly difficult to treat with any antibiotic regimen.

Have I mentioned that I'm spending way too much time surfing the web lately?