In the summer of 2011 I successfully CURED myself of Ulcerative Colitis using self-administered Fecal Transplants! How can I say I am cured? Over 9 years later, summer 2020 I am still free from symptoms without having to take any medications or supplements or highly restrictive diet. Sound too good to be true? Read on, because I assure you it is not. While I used Fecal Transplants to treat Ulcerative Colitis, they are now being studied for use in many other medical conditions. On this site and in my videos and ebook I will tell you how you can use these to restore yourself to health!
My experience with Ulcerative Colitis included 12 years of illness that began just before my 21st birthday in 1999 and was mostly treatment resistant. I tried over a dozen different medications over the years, as well as highly restrictive special diets, pro-biotics and other supplements which failed to stop the progression of UC. I was on high doses of Prednisone, Asacol, Remicade. I even tried the expensive VSL #3 pro-biotic supplement and the highly restrictive Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) where I made my own yogurt. After all of that my GI doctor referred me to a surgeon. The drugs just weren’t working and the long term side effects of being on steroids was too great.
The procedure I was to receive was a “full colostomy with temporary diverting Ostomy and restorative Illeoanal Reservoir.” What does that mean? Basically there would be two separate surgeries each with recovery periods. The first surgery would have multiple parts. First it would be to remove my entire large intestine (full colostomy). Then the doctor would cut through my small intestine and connect the end of it, the stoma, to a bag (temporary diverting ostomy). Finally a substitute large intestine would be created from the lower 1/3 of my small intestine. Then after about 6 months I would have a 2nd surgery where the substitute large intestine (j-pouch) up so that I could go poop normally again. If all went as planned, without any of several possible complications, I would be able to sleep through the night after a year and would ONLY have to go to the bathroom 5 times a day!
This was daunting, to say the least but I was assured this was my only remaining chance at some normalicy. However, the surgeon at Mayo Clinic near Jacksonville, FL even told me that I was not in good enough health for a speedy recovery from surgery. My blood albumin levels were too low, I needed to get more protein. So I started drinking meal replacement protein shakes and to my surprise I started to feel a little better, I stopped losing as much blood through my stool. I questioned myself. Did I really want to put myself through life altering surgery which would disrupt and diminish my quality of life even more than the illness for the next year in exchange for the chance that my life post-surgery would be better?
I researched the side effects of surgery. Even if all went as planned there were many potential problems. I also had these knawing questions. Was surgery really my only option left? Why does UC often appear to get better for some period of time in response to medication or diet, only to get worse again? If the cause of “ideopathic” Ulcerative Colitis is an auto immune disorder, then why did the anti-biotic Cipro help me? Why do treatments that suppress my immune system appear to work for a little while stop working?
I find out about Fecal Transplants
In January 2011, two months before I was scheduled to have surgery, I read an article called “The Enema of my Enemy is my friend.” The article documented several cases where fecal transplants were used to treat Pseudomembraneous Colitis caused by anti-biotic resistant Clostridium Difficile bacteria. While the article didn’t mention anything about my type of Colitis, where no known bacterial cause had been identified, it got me thinking. Did bacteria somehow play a role in what all of my doctors over the years had told was an auto immune disorder?
My initial flare of Ulcerative Colitis was resolved with the addition of the anti-biotic drug Cipro to my treatment regiment after Prednisone had been ineffective. Years later the anti-biotic Vancomycin caused an almost spontaneous remission. Also pro-biotics seemed to help some people, but not me on a consistent basis. I was also starting to get better as my surgery date approached, tapering off of Prednisone and healing with the help of protein shakes recommended by my colo-rectal surgeon. Surgery was the recommended treatment option for me, although I was starting to have more doubts.
Then a few days before my surgery date my Mom handed me a print out of the Wikipedia entry for Ulcerative Colitis. The article discussed treatment resistant cases that had been successfully treated using fecal transplants. This linked to an article from the Journal of Gastroenterology by Dr Thomas Borody which documented 6 cases of Ulcerative Colitis which had been successfully treated using fecal transplants. I read the article and was amazed. I discovered that the cases were very well-documented and were similar to mine in that they were mostly treatment resistant and had lasted many years. However, these patients weren’t just being treated on an ongoing basis. They were effectively cured! That is after a period of time the treatments were stopped and the patients had a remission of symptoms lasting for years without any ongoing medications!
I wondered how my doctors were unaware of this. How could there be a Given this new information and the prospect of avoiding life-altering surgery which would have taken months, up to a year or more to recover from, I decided to give this a try first, knowing that I could always have surgery later if for some reason this didn’t work.
I called several doctors including Dr. Borody in Australia however they did not have any appointments available for months. Then I called the doctors from the Slate.com article here in the U.S., I talked to one of them however I would have to wait months before I could get an appointment with them to do the procedure. Then I spoke with a woman who had done fecal transplants at home with her son to cure his case of chronic illness. So I decided to give it a try myself, all I needed to do was find a healthy donor.
Finding a donor
I decided I wanted to stay in the Washington, DC area instead of going home to Florida closer to family to these, so I asked a friend of mine who had once been a client of my dating coach business. We met to go hiking by Great Falls and brought up the topic, he knew about my illness especially since it had caused me to poop my pants once when we were out I asked him to be my donor. I also suggested since I didn’t know how long it would take that we get an apartment together and become roommates. It would be fun, two bachelors, me in my early 30s and him in his late 20s, with the ultimate bachelor pad. He asked me is there anything invasive about the process and I said no. He said “so you just need my __ (poop)? I wasn’t going to do anything with it anyway, so why not, if it will make you better.” I went through a donor history questionnaire that I had gotten from one of the doctors I talked to, it looked like he would be a good donor.
To put a long story short I ended up doing the fecal transplants for over a month and eventually added some medications to the mix to help further help the process. After some initial improvement of symptoms followed by a flare I finally got the illness under control about 6 – 7 weeks after I had first started the fecal transplants. I went to the psychiatrist who was treating me for ADHD to see if he could help with sleep problems I was having which were caused by drug side effects from Prednisone. It turns out that there was more I could do. I asked for the anti-depressant drug Bupropion in the immediate release form after reading some patient success stories on the internet and about a drug company study where Wellbutrin was used to treat Crohn’s Disease. My doctor also prescribed Silenor for sleep but told me it would also help for IBS symptoms too including diarrhea. I did some research and it turns out that Silenor was a a low dose of the tri-cyclic anti-depressant drug Doxepin which was also sometimes prescribed to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome. So as I started tapering off of Prednisone at the same time I added the anti-depressant drugs to the mix, Bupropion and Doxepin to help treat diarrhea and inflammation treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome symptoms, I also re-started taking Apriso (24 hour time released Mesalamine) and Mesalamine suppositories. The combination of all of these factors finally sent my symptoms into almost immediate remission by the end of the next day! I had a “normal” bowel movement, which for me was very abnormal after years of diarrhea, often with blood during a flare of the illness. About 6-7 weeks after this sudden and dramatic remission of symptoms, about 14 weeks after I had first started the fecal transplants, I had a colonoscopy revealed significant healing. My gastroenterologist was puzzled and struggled to find an explanation since he had told me that Ulcerative Colitis was incurable. However as I looked at the images it was clear to me, significant healing was occurring.
In summary I believe was helped cure me was a combination of the fecal transplants, protein shakes to facilitate tissue healing, anti-inflammatory properties of Wellbutrin (Bupropion,) successfully limiting diarrhea and muscle spasms. I go into greater detail in my book on how to treat Ulcerative Colitis using Fecal Transplants. Feel free to ask any questions through comments here or send me an email.
Michael