Healing from Antibiotics: The Gut-Brain Connection

Hi, this is your host Lindsey Parsons with The Perfect Stool: Understanding and Healing the Gut Microbiome. Today I talk with Christina, who resorted to weekly FMTs or fecal transplants after seeing not just her digestion but her mental health affected after a strong course of antibiotics to treat C. difficile, as well as proton pump inhibitors following a hospital stay for stomach surgery. But before we get to the show, as you all likely know, I I'm a health coach and I help clients lose weight without dieting or cutting calories. So if you or a loved one is struggling to lose weight, please reach out. But if that's not the case, one easy way you could help support the show is if you regularly take supplements that you buy online or that you could buy online. I have affiliate accounts in various places. One is Amazon. So if you go to amazon.com via the recommended products page on my website, HighDesertHealthCoaching.com, I get a small commission. And that's not just for supplements, that's really for anything. The same works for Vitacost, which is one of my favorite supplement stores that always gives great discounts if you're on their email list. And I also have an online dispensary through FullScript, which has medical-grade supplements that you can often only get through a doctor's office, and I pass on a 15% discount off of retail on those supplements to you. I also have an affiliation with yourlabwork.com, which is an online lab that you can access by my website, where you can order your own lab work, which is really handy if you're not on insurance or you can't get your doctor to order the labs you really want access to. So I'd really appreciate it if you check out those resources and support the show that way, which are all available via highdeserthealthcoaching.com or linked in the show notes. And now on to my conversation with Christina.

Today we're talking with Christina, who lives in San Francisco and has been giving herself fecal microbiota transplants for the last few months and seeing some powerful improvements in her health. So thank you so much, Christina, for sharing your story with us.

Yeah, I'm happy to join.

So can you tell our listeners, how did your health go downhill in the first place?

Yeah, so this was back in like May and June. It started with some stomach problems that I was in the hospital for. They never quite figured out my diagnosis, but I think what happened is that I was taking too much ibuprofen. I weakened my stomach and then there was— it caused sort of a small perforation in my stomach lining. That allowed some fluid to leak out into my abdominal cavity that then got infected. It was really serious. I was in the hospital for that. And then, they put me on really strong antibiotics to cure that infection, which worked. And then, they also had me on some— a proton pump inhibitor medication, which reduces your stomach acid. So, all of those things in addition to being in the hospital, which is full of C. diff. They put me at risk for C. diff. So, by the time I got out of the hospital, a few days later, I realized I had C. diff.

And what is C. diff?

It's pretty serious, yeah. So, C. diff is really painful. It's just constant diarrhea, really painful abdominal cramps. I mean, yeah, I guess I assume people probably know what it is. It's an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection. It's getting really widespread in hospitals. It's pretty scary, actually. So yeah, because I got out of the hospital and I expected that I was going to be able to start like eating some real food again because now my stomach was supposed to be mostly healed. But then I like, I just kept feeling really sicker and sicker. And so I went to the doctor and I got a stool test and it was positive for C. diff.

And so then they gave you antibiotics, presumably?

Yeah. So then they prescribed me vancomycin, which is, you know, a really, really strong antibiotic. That's pretty standard treatment. It was a 2-week course of 4 times a day. So like really seriously killing pretty much everything that was living in my gut. Right.

Complete wipeout of the total gut microbiota. Okay. And then how did you feel?

Yeah. So that, so that works to kill the C. diff, which was, which was nice. Cause I could, I could see some pretty like immediate improvements within a few days. But then, it was like there was this slow degeneration of like— I mean, my digestion was still pretty bad. I was eating a diet of rice crackers and beef jerky was what I was doing then. But then, I noticed these weird mood symptoms. I just kind of felt dead inside, this weight of kind of depression, but I just wasn't excited about the things I used to be excited about. And then I almost kind of felt, yeah, just like almost like autistic a little bit. Like I couldn't read people's emotions and just something was really off with my personality. It was really scary. I was like, what's happening to me? This is not me. Like, who am I?

And did other people notice it in you?

I mean, that's the kind of thing people just attribute like, okay, they just think that something's wrong with you or you're in a bad mood. But my partner did definitely notice. I was just like really irritable. I just wasn't myself. I wasn't I, there was also this kind of brain fog. So I was trying to apply for jobs at the time and I just couldn't focus on anything. I couldn't get myself motivated to follow through with anything, which is, which is not typical for me. I'm usually a pretty motivated, focused kind of person.

Okay. So what did you try to do to deal with this problem?

Yeah. So I, so I figured, you know, everything's dead in my gut. I need to heal that again. So I started taking tons of probiotics. I talked to the doctor, they recommended one called VSL3, which is, I'm pretty sure it's one of the strongest ones there is. It has some very—

Prescription probiotic.

Yeah, pretty much prescription strength. It's $70. It's crazy expensive. And then, I went on the internet, I bought all these different probiotics on Amazon like Saccharomyces boulardii, a bunch of different ones with different strains. I was taking all these probiotics and digestive enzymes and I was making myself all this special food. I had to puree my food to be able to eat any sort of vegetables. So, I was spending all this time cooking and making bone broth and all these things to heal my gut.

So, were you having digestive symptoms then if you ate the wrong foods?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, that was pretty bad. It was kind of complicated. It was all over the place. It would be diarrhea or bloating and constipation and cramps. And then, there were always— I would I would see pieces of undigested food in the toilet. It's really gross. Like, if I tried to— like vegetables, it was hard because I was, you know, trying to be healthy and give myself good nutrition. But anytime I would eat leafy greens or broccoli or like any vegetables really, I would see them come out the other side. So clearly my body was not— so there's nothing to digest, right? Right. It was just like causing me pain. It was just like really painful going through.

Yeah. And so did any of those supplements help?

Yeah, I think they helped a little bit. I noticed, I guess, a little bit of improvement, but overall, I was still like— I was trying to reintroduce some other foods that I used to eat, which I usually follow pretty much like a paleo diet, but I was on a much more restricted version of that. And I kept trying to reintroduce foods and it wouldn't work and I would just be sick all the time and just home with cramps and diarrhea. And it was just really terrible. It was like 3 months of like I wasn't really able to leave the house much.

Okay.

And then, and then alongside with that, like the mood symptoms, which I think partly was because I was depressed because I was like sick all the time, but also some of it was definitely physiological. Like I felt like my body wasn't producing serotonin and dopamine and the neurotransmitters that you need to feel good, you know?

So how did you find your way to FMT as a possible solution?

Yeah. So, well, at first, after a few months, I was still having diarrhea. And so I thought like, maybe I have C. diff again. Because I know it's pretty common. Forget what the rate is, but a lot of people get recurring C. diff. So I was worried I had that again. And then I was looking up treatments for that and I saw online that that is, I think it's the only case the FDA has approved fecal transplants for.

That's correct.

So I was like, oh, and that kind of gave me excitement because then I looked up some people's stories about fecal transplants and saw that there's some like really amazing results. Like people say it cured their depression, it improved their digestion a lot. They have all these amazing testimonials online. So I got really excited. I was like, well, maybe I do have C. diff. Like maybe, maybe I'll go to the doctor and maybe they'll let me have this. So I went to my doctor, I got a stool test and it was negative. So I did not have C. diff. But I was like begging her and begging her to give me a fecal transplant 'cause I thought that was like my only hope. And I looked up some stuff online that said that people like after C. diff, even once it's gone, people years later are still struggling to just digest normal food. And I was like, that's really terrible. I don't wanna ruin the rest of my life for this, you know, silly little infection. So I was determined. I was like, you know, I'm gonna figure something out. So when the doctor refused, when I realized that was not gonna be an option, I did some more research and I realized that I could do it on my own. That was an option.

And did you look at the various clinics that do it overseas?

I did. Yeah. I, and, and there's some people, I think you can buy like frozen poop pills from someplace and it's really expensive. It's hundreds of dollars. And I just, I just didn't have the money to travel overseas to do that. So yeah, I saw some stuff online on the website, um, The Power of Poop.

Right.

It's pretty good. So yeah, I saw some stuff that's saying that it's really not that hard to do at home. Like the hardest part is, is finding a good donor and getting them tested. And then from there. It's kind of gross, but like pretty straightforward and totally possible to do at home.

So how'd you go about trying to find a donor?

Yeah. Well, so I got really lucky in that my partner has really good health. He has good digestion and he, you know, he was really concerned about me. He wanted me to feel better. So he offered to be my, my donor.

And so you got started. How long did it take from him saying he would do it to when you pulled the plug?

Yeah. Also, I mean, I had to get him tested first. That was the hard part because a lot of these websites recommend that you send away to make sure, like send a stool sample to make sure it has a good microbiome composition and get blood testing and all these different things, which I just couldn't really afford. So, I had him go to his doctor and just get whatever his insurance would cover. So, he got kind of the minimal testing.

And what did that look like?

So, I think it was He had his stool tested just for the most common parasites and enteric pathogens. You know, those were all negative. And then he had his blood tested for STDs and I think hepatitis C or one of those. So it was really like the most basic testing. But, you know, I know he hadn't traveled abroad recently. That's one thing they ask. And just in general, he's in really good health. He has good digestion.

And he had antibiotics frequently or recently?

Yeah, not in the past several years. He did have them when he was younger, but like, you know, I don't— it'd be hard to find anybody who hasn't ever had antibiotics.

Very hard.

Very hard.

Plus, yeah, you know, so he was, he was close. He was willing to help me do it. Like, I wanted someone I could trust and also someone who would follow a special diet for me, you know, before doing the fecal transplant.

Tell me more about that special diet.

Yeah, so, so because I have a lot of food sensitivities, I'm pretty much celiac, like very heavily, very strongly gluten intolerant. And then, all these new foods I can't digest, like I can't have nuts, I can't have tomatoes or other nightshades, dairy is irritating, alcohol, sugar, all these things. So, we started doing the fecal transplants in the beginning of September. And so, the way we do it is for 3 days beforehand, he has to avoid any of these irritating foods.

Boy, that's a trooper.

It is. Yeah. I think that's the hardest part for him just because he can eat whatever he wants.

Yeah. For 3 days.

But ultimately, I think it's good for him.

And how often is he donating?

So we've been doing it roughly once a week. It depends on his availability. It's kind of time-consuming. I have to get him to follow this special diet and then he has to come over and Timing gets kind of tricky, you know, because he has to time his bowel movements when he's here and we have to get the container and I have to be ready. And yeah, there's like a lot of moving parts.

Yeah. And so tell me about the logistics of how you do your transplants.

Yeah, well, so it's, it's kind of funny because I, so I live in San Francisco in an apartment with 6 roommates, which is kind of how a lot of people live. They're all like young people, but I do not think it would be comfortable knowing that I was like mixing a slushie of poop in the bathroom. So, so we just kind of like hide in there whenever we, whenever we do the procedure.

And they— aren't they a little suspicious about like what's going on in the bathroom for so long?

Yeah. So, so I try to play it off and they ask what we're doing. Like we're just kind of having some kind of kinky sex in the bathroom.

And you prefer them to think that?

Yeah. Which is totally acceptable in San Francisco. That's a lot more acceptable than what we are doing. So that's probably— yeah, that's a tricky part is just like keeping that secret We rush from the bathroom into my bedroom to try and like—

So how long does it take for you to do it?

So yeah, I guess I can go through the actual procedure the way I do it if you want is whenever he's ready, whenever he feels like he's ready to take his poop, I give him a container, he goes and does that. And then at the same time, I just use one of those regular Fleet enema bottles and I give myself one of those to clean out my colon. So that takes maybe like half an hour to an hour. And then during that time, once I feel like I'm pretty cleaned out, then we take his stool and we mix it up in a Ziploc bag with some warm distilled water. We pour it through a strainer, kind of a makeshift disposable strainer, and into an enema bottle. And then that all maybe takes like an hour, an hour and a half to get all that done. And obviously you want to do it as quickly as possible while most of the bacteria are still alive. And then I go— I like to do this at night before bed. So then I go into my bed and we actually insert it, which is just— it feels really interesting. It's like having diarrhea backwards. It's like a really funny feeling. So then we insert it and then, you know, I do— I try to like massage it and I like stick my butt up in the air to get it to come back, like to fill my entire colon.

Do you have like a sequence of turns and stuff that you do? Yeah.

So, you know, so you lay on your left side first, right? So then it goes down. And then once I feel like it's kind of in, in there, I will do like a shoulder stand or a candlestick pose where I like hold my butt and my legs up in the air to get it to come down towards my chest. And then I lay on my right side and then I pretty much, and I try to stay flat because then I like to go to bed after that just so it can like circulate around and really get absorbed really well. So that whole process probably takes maybe it's like an hour of like moving around and I just like put on a movie or something just so I can— and it can be hard sometimes to hold it in. But then once it's in for like a few hours and I feel like the water gets absorbed and then by the next morning it's like a regular poop coming out.

And so you mentioned a makeshift strainer.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what I've—

because it's nice to have as many things as possible disposable because just Cleaning poop off of things is not fun. So, I get these— I get a red Solo cup and I punch holes in the bottom of it with, I think, with a meat thermometer because you want the holes to be big enough because I tried just using a regular kitchen strainer that you can buy at the store, but the holes are really small and it's really hard to get the stool through. So, you want to avoid big chunks of food, but you don't want to make it— you don't want to expose a lot of the bacteria to oxygen. So, it's finding a happy medium. So then I can just throw it away and it's great.

And so the chunks don't get stuck in the enema bottle? It's— the opening is wide enough?

Yeah, well, I use a funnel and I make sure there aren't any, any chunks going in. So, so it's pretty— it's, it's kind of the case. The holes are small enough to— Yeah, it's like, like maybe like a chocolate milkshake or like, like paint kind of like somewhere in between there.

Okay. And so, so you've been doing this once a week?

Yes, yeah, since September, something like that. So I've probably done maybe like 8 to 10 so far.

Okay. And so tell me, how has it impacted you?

Yeah, so that is just really the most amazing, miraculous part. My digestion has had incredible improvements. I can eat a lot more foods now. I can like, I can eat a salad, which is really amazing, like raw, raw spinach. So I can finally eat that and it's pretty much, it's pretty well digested. And I also noticed these really great mood improvements. The next day, it's always really noticeable. I have this boost in energy and I just feel happier and I want to go work out and a boost in my libido. And I just feel so much better the next day. It's like the sun is shining brighter, the leaves are prettier, everything is better. I can tell my gut is producing serotonin and dopamine and the brain fog is gone. So it's been kind of gradual over time. Like, I usually notice a spike the next day, like, like a clear improvement. But then over time there has been a gradual increase. It's really amazing.

So, so that whole flat affect is, is gone.

Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Like, I feel like I'm myself again. Definitely.

You can read people's emotions.

I can. Yeah, that's, that's really nice. That was like the scariest part.

Yeah, that is scary.

So yeah, I feel like myself again. And I feel like I kind of have— I feel like I have some of like sort of the energy that my partner has. Like he just, he just has this like energy to him. And sometimes like he likes to work out all the time. He's just like always like moving around and energized. And I feel like I have a little bit of that too. Nice. Which is— it's just cool to see how that's transferred through the bacteria. Like it's crazy, but it's really interesting.

Yeah. So how long do you plan to continue with it? Yeah.

So I'm thinking maybe another month or two. It depends, you know, how much I can convince him to do it for me because it's a lot of effort for him. I still have some food intolerances. I still can't eat nuts. I want to be able to eat nuts. So I think I'm, you know, I'm going to try reintroducing some more foods. Yeah. Hopefully a few more months or sorry, a few more months and then at some point it might be interesting to find another donor if I can find somebody else who's willing, cuz they say that that's, um, it's good to have different microbiome bacteria introduced. But yeah, we, we'll see. Not, not quite sure.

Now I know when you go to one of the clinics, you typically get 10 different donors and do it for 2 weeks, you know, 5 days, 5 days for the weekdays.

Mm-hmm.

Did you ever consider doing it just day after day like that?

Yeah, I would have liked to, definitely, but that's just— it wasn't possible as far as coordinating time with my partner and everything. Plus, it's— I don't know, it's kind of gross, and I don't want to be like spending every night in my bed like desperately trying to hold the poop in.

Um, is it really hard to hold in?

It can be sometimes. Like, I can't get up and walk around. Like, if I'm laying down, it's okay, but I can't get up and do anything. So yeah, you know, it's, it's worth it, but it's, it's not a really pleasant experience. Yeah.

So when you're all healed and done, do you think you're gonna go public and tell all your friends and family about how you overcame your problems?

Yeah, it's something I'm a little hesitant about. I've tried telling a few friends and some of them are really grossed out. My family is interested. I'm actually trying to convince some of them to do it for some of their problems.

They have similar problems.

So yeah, I'm trying to decide if I want to do it anonymously or— it is something I do want to evangelize. I think a lot of people have a lot of health problems. It's not just good for C. diff. I think for a lot of digestive issues, even mood disorders, And so it is something I want to evangelize and let the world know about.

Yeah. So have you written anything or put anything out there?

Not yet. I, I think I should. I do have a blog, although I may need to do it anonymously and not on my personal blog.

Yeah. Okay.

So yeah, I think that would be good. I think eventually I will. Yeah.

And so now that your boyfriend has been a donor for you, do you think he'd be willing to be a donor for other people?

He might be. There have actually been a few inquiries.

Oh, really? How'd they find out?

He— through the— actually through the Facebook group.

Oh, right.

The FMT Facebook group. Yeah. So I think he might be open. It's a lot of effort. So he definitely needs to charge a decent amount of money for all of his time and effort. And he needs to get the full extensive tests run if he's going to give it to a stranger, because I don't want them to be worried. I don't know. He's still a little bit grossed out by the whole thing. He's doing it for me because he cares about me. But I don't know if he sees that as his future career path because he has, you know, a good job that he has already.

It's a great source of extra income though.

I know. So I'm trying to convince him to do it because I think it's really special. It's really actually hard to find somebody that's in such good health.

Right, right.

So we'll see. Yeah, we'll see about that.

Okay. Anything else you want to tell us about your experience?

No, I don't think so. But I encourage other people to try it. I think a lot of people get really grossed out and they think it's really dangerous, but I think it's As, as long as you get it from a healthy donor, I think it's lower risk than maybe it sounds. And the gross part is definitely worth it for all the benefits you'll feel.

Yeah. I think the danger is, is particularly to people who are in very fragile health, who have, you know, things like IBD or Crohn's or ulcerative colitis where they're very fragile or low weight or—

Right.

I think that's, those are the really tricky situations.

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Yeah, thank you. It's been great sharing.

Okay, well, I hope you get back to 100% health.

Thanks.

Okay, take care.

Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying the show, please rate it on iTunes or your favorite podcasting app so others can find us, and make sure you're subscribed in your podcasting app. And also, I'd love to hear from listeners why you're interested in the show, why you liked it, or what you didn't like.

What you'd like more or less of, ideas for shows, etc.

So please email me at Lindsey Parsons with an E-Y at High Desert Health Coaching dot com, or follow and write me on Facebook at my High Desert Health page and tell me what you think. And be sure to include whether I can read your letter on the air. And also don't forget to support the show through my different affiliations off of the website. And thanks for listening, and here's wishing you all the perfect stool.