Student says: I am very discouraged. What should I do?
Master says: encourage others.
Zen Quote
Hi, I’m Tracy Mac the founder and editor of PoP.
In 2011 I benefited from a series of Fecal Microbiota Transplants at FMT Pioneer Professor Thomas Borody’s Centre for Digestive Diseases in Sydney, Australia and subsequently continued treatment via donor at home. FMT saved my job and gave me the physical and mental strength to keep on fighting. Although total recovery still eludes me I will be forever grateful for FMT.
At that time the CDD was the only clinic publicly offering FMT despite having had great success with the procedure for 15 years. I realised how fortunate I was to have geographic and financial access to FMT when the doctors I had consulted elsewhere had been ignorant or negative about FMT. I guess I was lucky to be so desperate I took the plunge regardless.
I emerged from my FMT experience surprised at the lack of information available online about the risks and benefits of FMT. With a background in risk management and training I was concerned that e-Patients were doing FMT at home without the information they needed to be safe and effective. So I decided to do something about it.
I started blogging to tell my story and provide plain-english information to those considering FMT. The blog immediately attracted interest from e-Patients with digestive illness wanting to know more. I was moved by the many emails I received from others like myself, either abandoned by the mainstream medical profession or stuck on high risk medications for life. As a result I kept on blogging and with the support of other FMT enthusiasts started the facebook support group in 2012, followed by this site in 2013.
You are not alone…
My inbox is moving reading and a tragic testament to the unacknowledged suffering of people who suffer intestinal dysbiosis and systemic illness triggered by antibiotics/anti-inflammatories/traveller’s diarrhea/food poisoning combined with unfortunate genetic pre-disposition. Some have a label like C. Diff, Ulcerative Colitis or Crohns Disease and others have undiagnosed digestive illness that defies a label and is dismissed as psychological.
This journey has taught me that poop is much more than ‘waste’. It is a community of health-giving microbiota that are as critical to life as blood flow or bone marrow, forming what is called the human microbiome. I want you, the digestive illness e-Patient to avoid some of the anguish and delay I experienced in becoming informed about a treatment I wish I had discovered many years ago. I don’t know if I will ever fully recover but I do know that I want something good to come out of my illness. I want you to know about the care and repair of your microbiome. I want you to teach your children to care for theirs. I want you to learn about the power of poop.
My objective is to provide responsible information about FMT so that e-Patients can decide for themselves if it’s worth a try. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that FMT is a last resort. Sufficient research now exists to indicate that with proper precautions the risks of FMT are minimal. Does it help everyone? No it doesn’t. But maybe it’s time to start asking your doctor some questions. In particular I invite you to question a system that favours long-term use of anti-biotics, anti-inflammatories, immunosuppresants and anti-depressants over an infusion of healthy fecal bacteria into your gut. Whereas these pharmaceuticals seek to dominate mother nature, FMT seeks to harness her. Shouldn’t drugs be the last resort, not the first? You have everything to gain and nothing to lose – except a little time, effort and dignity. Don’t leave it until it’s too late.
The aim of this website is to become unnecessary, to become redundant. One day there will a universal medical protocol for diagnosis and treatment of intestinal dysbiosis via safe, accessible FMT and it will be available to all who need it. One day the link between a dysfunctional microbiome and a surprising range of physical and mental illnesses will be more than anecdotal. On that day PoP will become a quaint relic of socio-medical history. But until the mainstream medical community start taking these issues seriously it is left to people like me to spread the word to ensure that people like you can make an informed choice.
If you’d like more information on FMT or are having trouble making the decision, see Is FMT for You? the FAQs and the Success Stories of others. If you’d like to chat to others on the FMT journey, come join us. If you’re a potential donor wanting to help, read A Donor’s Story and feel free to your questions. If you’d like to help others by sharing your success story or are interested in writing on any topic that will further public awareness of The Power of Poop, . If you’d like to join Team PoP in one of the many roles I have earmarked to make this site the biggest voice I can for people with damaged microbiomes, read the strategic plan and see if it calls to you.
Whatever you do, I urge you to reflect on your attitude toward fecal matters and open your mind. Interest in FMT is reaching critical mass and the mainstream medical community is going to have to sit up and listen.
July 2013
First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
To chat with others about FMT, join our Facebook group by sending a Friend Request to our pseudonym Sally Brown. To protect your privacy the group is hidden so only your friendship with Sally will show on your profile.