Poop Transplant Saves Woman's Life

A woman, whose life was threatened by a dangerous bacterial infection in her colon, was cured through a “fecal transplant.” It is exactly as it sounds: doctors take poop from one person and then put it up another person’s butt.

After 20-year-old Kaitlin Hunter was involved in a serious car accident—that involved a lower spine fracture, and the laceration of her liver and colon—she was given antibiotics to prevent an infection. A month later, she was experiencing extreme stomach pains, vomiting, and diarrhea which caused her weight to plummet to 85 pounds. Severely ill, she checked back into the hospital, where it was discovered that the bacteria clostridium difficile (C. diff) had infected her colon.

The antibiotics she had initially been given after her accident had weakened the healthy bacteria in her colon, which allowed the deadly C. diff infection—which kills about 14,000 people in the U.S. each year—to take over.

So Hunter’s doctors decided to turn to the brand-new technology of fecal transplants. Her mother donated one of her stools, which was then deposited into Hunter through a colonoscopy. The donor feces recolonized the colon with new, healthy bacteria and rid her body of her C. diff infection.

According to a study published earlier this year, fecal transplants have a 91% cure rate. Doctors are now working toward developing a commercially manufactured suppository to replace the crudeness of pumping straight shit through a tube into someone’s asshole. But either way, the results are beneficial.