One Family's Personal Experience With Fecal Transplants
When traditional treatments didn't help a young girl's colitis, her mother found out about fecal transplants … and how to do them all on her own.
By Beth W. Orenstein
Medically approved by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH
Kathy and Emma's experience with fecal transplants
When your daughter has a chronic disease like colitis, traditional treatments aren't working, and the child is facing what could be a bleak future of emotional and physical distress, what's a mother to do? Consider the story of a Florida family: Kathy and her 10-year-old daughter, Emma.
Twice a week, Kathy collects her stool and blends it with a saline solution to make an enema that she then gives Emma, who has ulcerative colitis.
Having her mother transplant feces has saved Emma from needing her colon removed and wearing a pouch the rest of her life. Within 24 hours of Emma’s first fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), all the blood in her stool was gone.
“I feel great,” said Emma, who was experiencing bloody stool as many as 11 times a day when she was first diagnosed in January 2012. She’s back to doing all the things she likes to do: going to the beach, hanging out with friends, reading, and watching TV.
