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Detailed lessons and experiences from 15+ stool donors

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I've done FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) from 15+ different donors, and intend to continue. Here's what I've learned and experienced.

Originally posted on 21 Jun 2018 after 8 donors.

Forum discussion: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/my-detailed-experiences-lessons-from-13-different-fmt-donors-jun-2018.53/

Table of Contents

Intro:

I tried to design it so the "full logs" sections can be skipped.

I primarily rely on this questionnaire https://humanmicrobiome.info/fmt-questionnaire/ to screen donors because I was very poor and testing is currently extremely limited and cannot be relied upon for safety or efficacy. See testing section of wiki: https://HumanMicrobiome.info

But I absolutely do not recommend not testing donors. These tests should be done:

European consensus guidelines tests (2017): https://gut.bmj.com/content/66/4/569#boxed-text-3

The “Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis 2.0™ (CDSA 2.0)-Genova Kit” from directlabs also seems useful.

When starting out I was going to put things like religion and political leanings as part of the questionnaire because I've seen evidence that these are due to underlying pathologies (citations below), and it also makes sense to me. But the difficulty in finding a high quality donor is so great that right now there is no way you can be that picky.

In my opinion the most dangerous current thing about FMT is the fact that high quality donors are not freely available. People aren't going to just sit around and die when there's an obvious cure. So the fact that there hasn't been a major push to get extremely healthy people (IE: top young athletes) worldwide to donate to stool banks who then sell the stool freely to anyone is the major problem. Another bewildering fact is that in the 3+ years I've been following the literature daily I haven't seen a single study comparing efficacy of the "average" FMT donor currently being used to someone like an olympic sprinter.

This Harvard lab gets access to top athletes, and what do they do? Test the possibility of their stool being a panacea and saving millions of lives? Na, we just wanna make a probiotic to sell. https://www.businessinsider.com/athletes-microbiome-gut-bacteria-probiotics-2017-8

Clinics, stool banks, trials, etc. using low quality donors is another major issue (see related wiki sections). Going to "official sources" of FMT is no guarantee of safety or efficacy. It seems to be due to one or more of:

  • Poor understanding of the gut microbiome and its impacts on the entire body/human health
  • Apathy
  • Inability to procure higher quality donors even with trying very hard

From individual reports of failures at Taymount for very simple conditions, and sometimes major detriments, plus the things I've seen them say on their website and in their youtube videos, I've concluded Taymount has a very poor understanding of the gut microbiome and are likely using low quality donors and likely also degrading the stool via their processing methods. And alarmingly, they continue to expand (with the same donors no less!)... now to Canada. Taymount refuses to give any info regarding donor quality, and it's no surprise when you hear about the poor results people are getting there.

Another person reported severe worsening, to the point of being life-threatening, after FMT in a clinical trial. And probably many more we never hear from. And it's absolutely no shock when you see the donor criteria being used. How can so many medical professionals working with FMT be so clueless about the gut microbiome's effects on the whole body... It seems like no one follows the literature.

Even OpenBiome, who seem to be open to feedback and continual improvements, their current (June 2018) screening questionnaire is an absolute joke. They only ask about past 8 weeks to 12 months for disease symptoms. And past 8 weeks for antimicrobials... This is extremely shocking and appalling. They said their Clinical Advisory Board approved it: https://openbiome.org/team/#cab - What the fuck?! TWELVE people on that list!! All of whom are that ignorant on the gut microbiome? This is yet another example of the MAJOR problems in our current health, education, & research systems: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/doctors-are-not-systematically-updated-on-the-latest-literature-what-t.27/

OpenBiome says "We currently have not had any serious adverse events reported that were directly related to our treatments". Firstly, it raises the question of "related to our treatments" - are they even able to judge what health effects their stool is able to cause in patients with the quite poor understanding of the gut microbiome that they seem to have? And how good is their feedback mechanism? Maybe patients & doctors aren't able to judge what is likely to have been caused by the stool either.

Nearly every person I've seen report that they had FMT sourced from OpenBiome reported developing new issues. One said they now have chronic sleeping trouble, another has a bunch of new food intolerances, and another developed "pretty rough seasonal allergies". It seems that these are not categorized as "serious", yet they seem extremely problematic to me. New food intolerances nearly cost me my life (as you will see in this report). Another recent report from a person who used OpenBiome reported little to no impacts from the FMT. From everything I've seen (their questionnaire, news coverage, individual reports), OpenBiome is definitely using low quality donors.

And it seems that patients with c.diff, and patients in clinical trials, are not being fully informed about the quality of donors being used or the risks involved with using these low quality donors from the "official sources". I was certainly not aware of this when I first contacted OpenBiome some years ago, wanting to use their stool. But learning about this has prevented me from enrolling in FMT clinical trials.

It's no surprise that OpenBiome seems to only be getting an 86% cure rate for C. diff, considering their significant shortcomings in donor quality: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5987372/

I did an analysis of OpenBiome’s safety and efficacy based on publicly available data (Aug 2018): https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/analysis-of-openbiomes-safety-and-efficacy-aug-2018.55/

No wonder these places are so secretive!! The more you find out about them the more you realize just how severely flawed they are.

RDS Infusions' donor criteria are also a joke, but it seems they got lucky by having an employee with a child who is a fairly high quality donor for some conditions.

I have written to the NIH, FDA, a legislator who is a doctor, and my state's medical board about these things. It seems to fall on deaf ears. No one seems competent or willing/able to do anything.

Thus, a community project has been started to try and take things into our own hands: [removed - outdated]

Human health:

I've also noticed that obesity and poor health have become so normal (easily 95%+ of the population) that I question people's ability to even identify healthy humans. I saw video coverage of one of OpenBiome's donors who was clearly not healthy, and this was confirmed when it was noted he had type 5 stools. I see on the internet a very widespread adoration of people (largely women) who are very unhealthy to the point of quite severe skeletal and body mass disfiguration, likely due to generational compounding of unhealthy people having kids and continued unhealthy lifestyles and assaults to the human microbiome via things like antimicrobials. Example/support:

Diet-induced extinctions in the gut microbiota compound over generations: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature20796

Healthy:

Not healthy:

Can you pick the healthiest people out of these?

  1. [dead link]

  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20221028163708/http://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/etownbluejays.com/images/2017/8/31/2017_Elizabethtown_WVB_Team_Photo.png

If you picked any, you failed. Likely none here either: https://mwvbc.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/imag0325.jpg - https://archive.ph/wJH37

When scouting college athletics I could typically only identify 1-2 healthy people per team, and often none. But the sprinters seemed to have the largest numbers of healthy people.

Health absolutely reflects in the face. I see drastic changes in my own appearance with shifts in my health, and I can generally pick out the winner of a race, or the top athlete from a team, just by looking at them.

Mertesacker for example is a top athlete who I would not pick out of a line up because he does not look healthy to me. And, to no surprise, it turns out he has significant health issues: https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/interview-with-mertesacker-about-exit-from-arsenal-football-a-1198260.html

And going back to what I said about politics, there are clear and drastic differences in supporters of the 3 main 2016 US presidential candidates for example. Very very obvious and distinct phenotypes were supporting their particular candidate. And it was blatantly obvious to me which one was the healthiest.

There are many very intelligent people. The problem is that they are usually not physically healthy and thus would not make good donors. Same goes for unintelligent athletes.

The implications/possibilities here are tremendous (citations in the referenced wiki and more in this article). With something as simple and available as transplanting feces you could possibly bring an end to political and religious strife (more citations), and bring the 95% up to the functioning of the top 1-5%: https://www.highiqpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bell-curve.png - a large majority of the population currently seems to be incapable of higher level critical thinking due to physical/biochemical limitations stemming from poor health/development. I believe both my experiences and the literature strongly support FMT being a viable treatment for this.

My history:

CFS that came on gradually with breathing difficulty, heart problems, and IBS, since I was young. Had to quit school in 11th grade and got on disability shortly after.

In 2011 xifaxan changed my IBS-C to D, along with other permanent detriments like not being able to eat fat/protein or everything gets way worse. And it set me off on a major continual decline.

In 2014 I found some probiotics (primarily Jarrow's s.boulardii) that reversed the severe fatigue & heart feeling like it was being overclocked to the point of failure, that sent me to the ER. Imodium also greatly decreases my fatigue. In general, the softer my stools are the worse everything gets.

After taking the soil-based probiotic Prescript-Assist, I developed a bunch of new, severe problems, and that's when I started my FMT donor search, since it was apparent that only FMT could save me now: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1UA8D182MJAIJ

I saw online that Minocycline antibiotic has been used to treat arthritis, so I brought that info to my primary care doctor. He gave me two antibiotics to target the new issues. Both helped but mostly only temporarily:

Xifaxan 550mg 2xday 3/31/2016 - took the color out of face. Did seem to suppress the soil bacteria while I was taking it. Didn't experience any of the previous problems I experienced when I took it in 2011. Which means the issues were due to the detrimental impact it had on my gut microbiome (rather than other mechanisms of side effects), and since it already damaged my gut microbiome it now doesn't do much more damage.

Metronidazole/Flagyl 500mg 3xday 4/13/2016 - didn't mess with face color, but made Achilles tendon hurt/weak, think it caused my skin to look old & can't repair (IE: sun damage increased). Did suppress the soil bacteria while I was taking it.

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Around this time I started a deep dive and daily following of the microbiome research (largely thanks to microbiomedigest.com. Also google alerts.

If you're wondering whether I was pissed off by the fact that in my condition I had to come and do the job of a doctor and read and interpret the literature myself with no more than a GED, the answer is yes.

Doctors are not systematically updated on the literature, and most don't seem to bother with it, so if you want treatment based on the most up-to-date knowledge you have to learn it yourself from the internet. This major medical system flaw is no doubt costing hundreds of thousands of lives. https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/doctors-are-not-systematically-updated-on-the-latest-literature-what-t.27/

My major methods for finding donors: https://archive.is/gEw3u

I probably contacted more than 300 people. At least 60 very healthy, young, athletic people in person.

I developed some severe misanthropic feelings after failing to find someone for more than a year despite asking many extremely healthy people. After years of being so close to death so many times, mostly bedridden with huge amounts of time spent in intense physical agony. Then a bunch of extremely lucky, perfectly healthy people can't even spare their fecal matter to save your life. A pretty much perfect and very effective donor agrees, does one, then goes silent with no reason, despite being very friendly before and after, and knowing my condition was life-threateningly severe.

I eventually added in the sentence "I have been unable to find someone for over a year. Please consider carefully whether your poop is more valuable than a human life." to my flyer. But it seemed to have no effect. And offering $1000+ didn't seem to have any effect either.

I will try to provide as much vital information as possible while trying to protect the privacy of the donors. I'm a white 31 year old male. I grew up in Asia (7 countries), first came to US when I was 14. Health problems came on gradually since I was a kid. I'm very tall and underweight. My stools are typically huge (maybe 2.5-3 inches width, and about a foot long) and brown/light brown. For me, darker & softer stools have been associated with all around worsening since taking xifaxan in 2011.

My memory and note taking were not 100%, and it's hard to describe how severe certain things were.

A few takeaways:

  • There seems to be major signaling along the entire intestine. Stuff that seems upper GI related can be impacted via colon FMT.

  • Neither Xifaxan or Metronidazole made low quality donors more effective.

  • Flagyl very effective/helpful once it makes it through the whole colon, yet using it via enema does nothing. Major differences between IV, oral, or enema flagyl.

  • Long term (months) FMT is likely needed for more complex conditions. Yet some things (bile acid diarrhea) seem easily fixable via 1-2 FMTs with the right donor.

  • Doing the retention enema right after a BM seemed as, if not more, effective than doing a complete colon cleanse via inducing diarrhea. Though the donor stool quality was not consistent. I made sure to lie in declined positions to get it to flow through the whole colon. Inducing diarrhea itself though seemed to possibly have some impacts, such as improvements to skin, and possibly impacting some pathways and thus changing location of some problems and possibly helping flush some others through. Some support: Transient Osmotic Perturbation Causes Long-Term Alteration to the Gut Microbiota (2018): https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30585-3

But one of the agents I used for inducing diarrhea (h202) probably played a primary role.

  • Pathways - it seems like often things don't get fixed but rather the problem gets moved to another pathway/location. Arthritis, some rough skin patches, unique BOs, heart problems vs head problems, red dots, are a few examples. Possibly related to this? "A newly discovered network of fluid-filled channels in the human body may be a previously-unknown organ, and it seems to help transport cancer cells around the body" (2018) https://www.newscientist.com/article/2164903-newly-discovered-human-organ-may-help-explain-how-cancer-spreads/

  • Via enema seemed more effective with certain donors. But I've heard feedback from other people that the oral route seemed more effective for them. I started doing both when possible. I later verified that oral is required for some conditions: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/experiment-with-enema-only-vs-top-down-oral-capsules-colon-only-method.58/

  • Small amounts (less than 1 capsule) seemed as effective, if not more so, than larger amounts (2-6oz).

  • Nearly anything wrong with the donor can be transferred.

  • Nearly every donor had unique effects, but 1 and 4 seemed very similar in questionnaire, stool type and effects.

  • 0 lifetime antimicrobial use might be an important factor. Perhaps due to long-term damage, or perhaps due to a healthy/disease resistant gut microbiome never needing antimicrobials.

  • It seems very clear to me that high quality donors have something very important, that stimulates an immune system response, that low quality donors completely lack. So combining multiple low quality donors cannot equate to one high quality donor (what Taymount seems to be trying to do). I have a feeling this very important factor is severely damaged by antimicrobials. Maybe phages, maybe some immune system component.

  • Since stool testing (conventional & commercial 16s) is extremely limited you have to rely on an in-depth questionnaire, but even well-meaning people omit, forget, or downplay certain things.

  • Donors seem to majorly misjudge their stools. That plus the fact that intermittent soft stools seem to be dangerous means that you probably want to get multiple samples from a person over 2-3 days straight to judge the stool for yourself before using any of it.

  • I had no idea how important stool type/consistency was coming into this, but it seems high quality donors have identical stools, while low quality donor's stools are heterogeneous, thus it's one of the major ways to judge stool quality. This is based on my own experiences, and from experiences from numerous other people. And this Anna Karenina hypothesis supports this: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/donor-quality-and-stool-type-hypothesis-for-fmt-fecal-microbiota-trans.142/

This 2017 study saying otherwise is only for C. diff (which requires much less strict donor criteria): https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(17)32233-3/pdf

And it's quite likely that study completely lacked high quality donors (due to severe deficits in OpenBiome's donor selection), so they were only comparing average/low quality donors with each other. Also I believe it is a matter of "the highest quality donors all have type 3 stools, but not every donor with type 3 stool is high quality".

At this point I would nearly bet my life on every single person in the "healthy" category/list above consistently having type 3 stools.

  • Healthy stools are not repugnant.

  • I think that continued FMTs (weeks/months) with donors 1 or 4 could result in sustained improvements if not cure. But they both made themselves unavailable. FMT from these two donors felt like taking 1 antibiotic pill when you're supposed to take 3x/day for 2 weeks. This (along with prebiotic experience below) might implicate phages as one of the most important components of FMT.

  • Prebiotics and other whole foods that harmed me prior to FMT also harmed me during & after FMT. At best, they had no impact. I do not think you should/can introduce these until you're pretty much in complete recovery. My experience with this says it is misguided to try and feed the new bacteria from the FMT. You shouldn't have to force these, but rather the right microbes from the right donor will allow you to reintroduce certain foods: https://www.science.org/content/article/fecal-transplants-might-help-save-vulnerable-koalas + "diet" section of wiki.

  • From birth to 2015 I had 0 cavities. New Prescript-Assist problems at end of 2015. First FMT mid 2016. Problematic FMT donors in 2017. 01/18/2018 - found 6 small cavities. 7/20/2018: Some cavities got worse, and I got 4 new ones for a total of 10.

Based on my experience & knowledge it seems soft stools are from one or more of:

  1. A low quality gut microbiome that lacks certain microbes needed in the digestion of certain foods. Or lacks certain microbes that control/limit others.

  2. A pathogen that feeds off certain food items (iron for example), and thus causes soft stools & other problems when eating those foods.

  3. Temporary upset from either mild food poisoning or poor hygiene/sanitary practices.

Some of the "full logs" are quite long, not sure how valuable they are. I can remove them based on feedback.

Donor 1:

Teenage, white female. Perfect in nearly all areas except an issue with menstrual cramps and smokes weed. Zero lifetime antibiotic use. Vegan/vegetarian for many years. Is someone I'd pick out of a line up. Type 3 stool. Poop = 8/10.

Prior to FMT: milk fasting for months. xifaxan & flagyl (two weeks each) from 3/31/2016 to 4/28/2016 which were taken to try and target the new problems caused by the soil bacteria probiotic.

FMT July 4-7, 2016.

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I made a major error of stopping Jarrow's s.boulardii while trying other things, and then eventually forgot about it or discounted its effects. So I've been on a major decline and am mostly in bed all day in significant agony at this point. It feels like my whole body is shutting down.

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Main concern was that I was not able to empty colon with colonoscopy prep because I have to take imodium every day or all symptoms get much worse. So I was concerned the enema wouldn’t make it all the way through. But I’m pretty sure I was able to get it all the way through with lying inverted, proper positioning, stomach contractions & massaging stomach with hands.

First sample from donor was only 1-2tbls. It was sitting in a plastic ziplock bag for 10-15 minutes before I got to it because the donor didn’t want to directly notify me. Added unmeasured amount of bottled distilled water and inserted 3 turkey basters worth (about 5.5 fl oz) of liquid into colon.

Additional liquid in colon (speculation; could have simply been an immune reaction from the FMT) made symptoms (fatigue, heart pounding, temperature intolerance, arthritis pain) worse for around 8 hrs, then symptoms digressed after liquid was absorbed.

After those symptoms died down I got some cold/hot sweats while sleeping on & off during the day. I experienced these sweats previously (some years ago) after taking xifaxan.

Gas before rock hard BM the next day. Appearance & consistency were very standard for me – so no signs of change yet. Got lucky with the timing of this that it came in between the periods where the donor had a BM.

Ate: 3+ meals of oatmeal, or nuts (walnuts, almonds, cashews), bananas, and milk. Usually (after prescript-assist) fruit would cause severe arthritis flare up, but it did not. Additionally, I recall flairs coming fairly quickly after meals (under an hour I think), which indicates the small intestine, yet this colon-only FMT seemed to cure that problem. Therefore there seems to be major signaling throughout the whole intestine. Other than that, feeling mostly the same.

2nd sample from donor was about 4” x 1”. It was dark brown, firm & uniform, and pretty dry; not sticky or soft. I think I got to it in under 5 minutes. Added unmeasured amount of water and inserted 3 or more turkey basters worth of liquid into colon.

No symptoms during the night. Feeling good enough for a bit of light/short exercise upon waking, but lying down afterwards. 1 meal of nuts & milk. Stopped taking imodium today. No signs of negative impacts due to stoppage.

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Post FMT:

BM after arriving home 12+ hrs after waking. BM had definite signs of change (but those changes seemed to fade in the next one, but then came back temporarily after doing milk only). Only other apparent changes so far are no arthritis flare up from bananas, gas back a bit, slight decrease in fatigue. Stopping imodium was premature; had to restart it within 1 day due to fatigue.

Main concern after the 2nd FMT was that the small intestine plays a significant role and leaving it untouched will be problematic. Was planning on encapsulating some to swallow, but read it can cause SIBO so didn’t do it (learned later this is misinformation). Already experiencing some reflux after the FMT, so thinking swallowing a pill would probably be worse (again, wrong).

7/9/2016: Shoulder cramp

7/10/2016: Stopping fruit due to pain & stiffness returning.

8/5/2016 - Cramps mostly faded, but when using inversion table I get pain in neck that travels to head and forces me to stop.

8/9/2016: Starting double imodium & double creatine because fatigue is worsening.

9/18/2016 - Cramps & systemic pain come and go depending on gut microbiome changes.

12/31/2016: Cramps/pain went away for a while (probably due to FMT/abx) but are coming back now.

1/22/2017,2/1/2017: Cramps/pain still come & go, but are fairly light.

5/15/2018: getting some light cramps recently. In hand and neck.

Seems likely the cramping thing is from some females picking up a pathogen from poor sanitary practices, and this pathogen feeds off iron, which is why it gets bad during their period.

I think the fact that I stopped imodium so soon hampered the results. I did too much too soon, expectations were too high (from reports of single infusions being successful). Probably could have gotten greater & longer lasting benefits if I'd have kept taking imodium. And I went with too much food too soon. I jumped immediately into my problem foods. Nuts typically soften & bulk my stool and increase fatigue. I wanted to try again with this donor (despite the cramps) but they would not.

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Donor 2:

7/29/2016 to 8/3/2016 - total: 44 capsules.

Poop = 6.5/10.

Donor was not ideal at all. I only did it out of desperation and inability to find anyone else.

5 year old, slightly mixed race (white + Hispanic maybe?), with sleep & behavior problems who took a prophylactic antibiotic in the past 2-3 months for a dog bite. Grinds teeth. Is someone I'd pick out of a line up. Neither parents are especially healthy.

Stool showed signs of antibiotic usage that I've seen happen to myself. The starting end was hard round pellets/nuggets and the rest was soft/formed, loose, and stinky. Light brown.

My diet prior to starting this FMT was still: milk, bimuno, Align, Culturelle, Reuteri pearls, imodium, creatine, d3.

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Arrived, swallowed poop - 5 pills with water & nuts. Slept.

Small amount of stomach bubbling & gas. Minor cold sweats. Feeling about the same after waking - still fatigued. [imodium & water]. [probiotics, bimuno, 1 cup milk]. [water & nuts]. 2:35. [1/2 cup raw oats, 1 cup milk]. 6:48. [10 poop pills with water]. 10:25. [nuts & water]. 11:14. Slept.

Stopping imodium. [1/2 cup raw oats, 1/2 cup milk, bimuno & probiotics]. 02:00. [nuts]. 04:10. Starting to feel better. [flax seeds, cheese, peanuts]. 08:30. [4oz cheese, nuts]. 11:14. Increase in gas, can't sleep, very restless & irritated. [6 poop pills with water]. 15:20. [peanuts]. 16:30. 1st BM, compact & pale brown, then soft & sticky but not pale. 17:50. Slept.

Boners & dreams starting to return. Woke at 03:20. [nuts, probiotics, bimuno]. 06:00. [1/2 cup raw oats & flax seeds, 1/2 cup milk]. 08:30. [garbanzo beans, olive oil]. 12:30. [14 poop pills with water]. 16:00. [nuts]. 18:00. Slept.

2nd BM, formed then soft hot & sticky, slightly pale. 02:30. Appetite gone, cold, some hip pain returning. [probiotics, bimuno]. 07:40. [9 poop pills with water]. 09:20. No hints of SIBO so far.

Stopped and went home because it was obviously not working. Fatigue, temperature intolerance & hip/lower back pain were getting worse - all things that for me are associated with soft stools & the foods I ate.

Appetite increased after the first 1-2 times within 15 minutes after swallowing the capsules.

I added the foods in order to try and feed the new bacteria. I now know this is misguided.

So I got some temporary benefits in addition to some temporary autism-like symptoms, which I generally experience to lesser degrees during shifts in my gut microbiome - usually during shifts from bad to good. Which makes me think that the gut microbiome of autists is unstable. I heard a similar report from someone else of FMT temporarily triggering autism-like symptoms. Again I jumped into my problem foods right away. Expectations/hopes were too high. Might have gotten better results had I stuck to safe diet.

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Donor 3 and 4:

Donor 3 is a white kid from a health-conscious family. Mother is a healthy weight but all family members have various (somewhat minor) health issues. Ear problems and Tourette's run in the family. Mother had lots of antibiotics as a child for ear problems, and had sudden, permanent hearing loss about 4 years ago in 1 ear.

Everything seemed fine for this particular child. Only one instance of Amoxicillin for ear infection in 2014. Stool was soft but I had no idea how much stool consistency mattered at this point.

Donor 4 seemed ideal in every way. College-aged, mixed race (Asian + white) female athlete and writer. Zero lifetime antibiotic, or any other drug, use. Vegan/vegetarian for many years. Type 3, small, dark, uniform stools identical in every way to donor #1. Only reported issue was temporary depression in years past due to a group of people in her community. Is someone I'd pick out of a line up.

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Prior to these FMTs:

Continuing to worsen.

09/01/2016: Been getting prostate & testicle pain. Feels like cancer will come soon if I can't find an FMT donor (this went away after the FMTs but I don't have an exact date). Stopped bimuno & culturelle recently due to the additives, and it helped improve my fatigue.

10/8/2016 I noticed one of those brown skin spots on my face that old people get. Terrible feeling to see your body deteriorate like that, especially at my age. I first started noticing skin damage from the sun was not repairing itself after taking Metronidazole in April 2016, which also made my Achilles tendon hurt/weak. Also getting some headache in the brown spot area. Feels like the infection from the first FMT made it to my brain. I'm scared.

FMTs: 11/9/2016 to 12/7/2016.

My diet is milk, imodium, creatine, prephage, floraphage, b.coagulans produra.

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Highlights:

Each donor's poop seems to do things the other's does not. Donor 3's poop messed with sleep schedule (regular occurrence for me during shifts in gut microbiome, usually from bad to good), brought back dreams, sex drive & erections, and did not have any detrimental impacts (most effects were temporary though). Did many FMTs from donor 3 over a period of weeks, oral and rectal.

Only did 1 FMT from donor 4. Donor 4's poop made a bunch of things worse temporarily (similar to donor #1, even though donor 1 was rectal only, and donor 4 was oral only), but then improved fatigue & skin (seemed like it started to repair the skin damage that Flagyl did), sleep schedule, improved lower back & hip pain, improved brain function, and made temperature intolerance return temporarily. Donor 4's poop seems like a much bigger mixed bag; a wider range of positive and negative impacts.

Seemed like Donor 4's microbes were fighting with the ones in my gut, and Donor 4's eventually lost. Probably more FMTs from Donor 4 would have helped a lot.

Interesting note is that Donor 3's younger brother took the exact same antibiotic at the exact same time (or close to it), lives in the same household, etc., yet his stool is significantly different.

5 days after Donor 4 FMT, I started taking Xifaxan and resistant starch (whole foods) with/before the Donor 3 FMTs in order to try and boost the impacts. It didn't seem to work.

I contracted the hearing problems that run in Donor 3's family, but FMT from future donors seemed to neutralize it.

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Donor 4 was extremely friendly before and after, yet gradually went silent for no apparent reason while continuing to promise to do more donations.

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Post FMT:

12/8/2016

Going back to pure milk because not even feeling good enough (cold, fatigue, bit of lower back pain & anxiety) to pass out flyers. BMs got stinky again. Maybe need to get back on xifaxan. Developed a twitch in my lower left eyelid (went away after a week or so, came back 1/10/2017). Fatigue improved more by 12/9/2016.

12/22/2016

Going back to pure milk helps a lot with all symptoms. Doing MUCH better than before the Donor 3 FMTs. BMs now skipping 2 days when before it was every other day.

12/23/2016

Getting some ear pressure & hearing fluctuations (slightly similar to airplane experiences). Definitely feels like I could experience sudden hearing loss.

1/1/2017

Getting some light tinnitus that comes & goes.

1/2/2017: Added back in 1-2 meals of resistant starch because it seems like milk-only causes periodic diarrhea. Cold came back. Seems like fiber brings back the cold and I think it's just the switch to RAW milk that causes the diarrhea. Adding just a bit of flax seeds to pure milk caused weight to drop & temperature intolerance & fatigue returned. On pure milk (no raw) BMs are back to skipping 2 days (took over a week to recover from flax), but still cold & fatigued in bed, & mouth health bad, so testing a bit of oats. Oats seem to increase energy, but also increase lower back & hip pain. Everything else seems mostly the same.

Continued experimentation with diet, probiotics, prebiotics. Cannot stabilize condition, and continued to worsen over next few months.

1/22/2017: Still getting some ear ringing coming & going.

2/18/2017: Seemed like the IV antibiotic during surgery (had surgery for pectus excavatum bar removal 01/26/2017) helped with the ear issues, but just today it started happening again. Today my gut microbiome is switching from a bad state to a good one (formed dark BMs to compact light). Same thing happened 2/25/2017.

6/25/2017: No hearing problems for a few months now, then just today one of my ears went out temporarily. This correlates with a major shift in my gut microbiome today for the worse due to a probiotic+phage combo.

5/26/2018: Haven't had any ear/hearing issues for a long time now.

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Full log:

11/9/2016 was first FMT from donor 3. I picked up the stool each time about 15 minutes after the donor's BM. Stool was stored in ziplock bag in the fridge (not freezer) till I got it. I did a total of 10, including both oral and rectal. First stool was a bit soft & sticky, light brown with orange tint, uniform. Swallowed about 3-4oz out of maybe 6-8oz total. Sometime in the next couple hours had a really familiar and good smelling fart. Haven't smelled that particular smell in a long time! Fart turned out to be a squirt of diarrhea.

11/10/2016: Difficulty sleeping, pretty much no sleep.

11/11/2016: Difficulty sleeping, on and off, some crazy dreams about being trapped in my mind or something.

11/12/2016 First/only FMT from donor 4. 2 nuggets, about 1.5oz on empty stomach first thing after I woke, immediately after the donor's BM. Donor's poop almost exactly resembled (color, texture, consistency, smell) the first donor's.

About 6 hours later, fatigued in bed for the rest of the day with no more meals. Chest heaviness/tightness, bit of heart pounding & hip pain.

11/13/2016

Slight changes to BM, but nothing resembling either donor. Only gas resembled donor's stool odor after their respective FMTs. Feeling pretty miserable/sad towards end of day, but recovered after a bit.

11/14/2016

Sleep seems to be normalizing (schedule & dreams; well attempting anyway, on and off). Temperature intolerance, and some chest tightness/heaviness still. Looks like I'm getting some brain function back. Seems to be repairing damage that Flagyl did to my skin. Temperature intolerance gone by end of day.

11/15/2016

First BM where Donor 4's poop has passed all the way through. Slight change towards Donor 4's in color & smell.

11/16/2016

Most improvements have not been stable/consistent. Will begin xifaxan & resistant starch as soon as I get reply from Donor 4. Stomach bubbling & gas. Donor 4's poop seems much more powerful, and has a wider range of benefits.

11/17/2016

At least fatigue seems to be continually slowly improving, but still some temp intolerance. Stomach bubbling continuing. 2nd post-Donor 4 BM, compact, light brown, got stinky again, no sign of either donor, got slightly sticky which correlates with temp intolerance.

Starting xifaxan & resistant starches in the hope it will make the FMTs more effective.

11/18/2016

Temperature intolerance & fatigue got quite bad. Seemed like Donor 4's microbes were fighting with the ones that cause the temp intolerance, and Donor 4's eventually lost. Had another BM, this one had some soft & sticky. [3-4oz Donor 3's poop].

11/19/2016

Xifaxan seems to have stopped the temperature intolerance, which was reflected in today's BM. Face is looking bad, but I also took niacin, which can cause that.

11/20/2016

[1-2oz Donor 3's poop, very soft].

11/21/2016

[~1oz Donor 3's poop, color and texture much closer to abx-free donors]. Enema (1.5fl oz from less than 1/2oz poop, used 3 stage carbon filtered tap water) with bit of Donor 3's last night poop (stored in fridge in ziplock bag). Held in for 24 hours.

11/23/2016

Currently main symptoms are fatigue & temperature intolerance. Pain/arthritis is not present. Xifaxan seems to have minimized/prevented any results from the recent Donor 3 FMTs. Also bit hard to distinguish impacts from xifaxan vs poop. Also stopped taking double imodium for a couple days so that caused fatigue to increase.

11/25/2016

BM today was changed toward Donor 3's in smell and appearance, but I'm not feeling better... BM still soft.

11/26/2016

Feeling pretty good. Guessing it's a mixture of xifaxan + double imodium + 2 fiber meals & 2 milk meals per day + maybe FMT.

11/27/2016

BM looks & smells like Donor 3's, but still not very hard even though double imodium & 2 milk meals. Only small improvements to fatigue. Still cold.

11/28/2016

Adding 1tbls coconut oil to 1 meal caused some gas along with BM frequency increase, but BM was compact. Energy increased but cold & hip pain got worse.

11/29/2016

Oil definitely made everything worse, including softened BM.

11/30/2016

Final dose of xifaxan was this morning, 12 hours prior to the FMT.

Starting to recover from coconut oil. [~1.5oz Donor 3's poop. Was formed & dryer like the previous one]. 15:30 Enema about 1/2hr later with about 1tbs poop in 2 fl oz water. Was feeling pretty good till the extra water in colon started to hit. Then fatigue in bed, light heart pounding, & hip pain.

12/1/2016

Fatigue & temperature intolerance improving towards end of day, but lower back pain is bad. [~1tbls Donor 3's poop, very soft, dark brown]. 16:25 Did an enema with the rest (about 4oz) about an hour later, total 3fl oz. Held in for ~36 hours.

12/2/2016

Dreams & night time erections are back, but not really any other significant changes. Overall it doesn't seem like the antibiotics & fiber had a major impact. [~2oz Donor 3's poop. Was a bit less soft than yesterday]. 16:20

Some pleasant dreams tonight.

12/3/2016

Enema with ~2oz of Donor 3's poop from yesterday, which was kept in bottom of fridge in ziplock bag with air squeezed out. Did about 1.5fl oz, about .75fl oz leftover. Held in for 24 hours. [~4oz Donor 3's poop, dark brown & soft/formed but less soft than yesterday]. 13:40

In general more liquid in my colon = more severe symptoms. It seems like each FMT enema over the past few days has gradually decreased the severity of my reactions to the added liquid.

12/4/2016

Temp intolerance returning. Maybe the niacin helped.

12/5/2016

Lots of gas yesterday evening & today. Seeing general improvements.

12/6/2016

[3-4oz Donor 3's poop, dark brown, a bit dryer than last time but not really "formed"]. 16:50

12/7/2016

[~2oz Donor 3's poop, dark brown, soft]. 15:40 6-8oz poop, but only could stomach ~2oz.

---

Donor 5:

May 30 - June 10, 2017. 6 FMTs from this donor during this time.

White, highly religious male, ~25 years old. Possibly someone I'd pick out of a line up. I had previously ruled out this donor due to various (somewhat minor) health problems he has even though he's physically fit. But even though my criteria certainly ruled him out, he would probably qualify for the majority of official stool donation avenues. Due to my worsening condition I decided to risk it since I had no other options. Also, donor said they have firm stools, and at this point it's starting to seem like an important factor.

Mild food intolerances & allergies (peanut, gluten, dairy, pet dander, dust). Antibiotic around 13 years old for lymph node infection. Some other medications on and off. "No fap" type person. Some drug use and lots of pot 16-20 years old. Nighttime urination (this seems to be caused by gut dysbiosis from my experience. Kind of like a mild infection). Joint pain sometimes. Breast fed & vaginal birth (just like all other donors). Family history of some of the major diseases.

I was weary of the religiosity, but I reasoned that there are so many extremely top athletes who are religious and also extremely physically healthy, so not sure how much it matters since I would definitely do FMT from them. Donor also seemed a bit "air headed", and extremely forgetful.

Donor had some long-standing symptoms similar (weaker/lesser versions of) to what Prescript-Assist caused in me. Turns out his poop did the exact same thing Prescript-Assist did - made my BMs really infrequent, but still quite soft & sticky. For a short while post FMT I was better off than I was right before them, and even though BMs went back to where they were before I started any FMTs, I was still doing better than then since I was able to eat food (vs the milk-only diet I went on).

-

During the period of the previous FMTs till this, I tried a number of things: Probiotics and prebiotics that made things worse. Pectus excavatum bar removal surgery, which comes with mandatory IV antibiotics. Some resistant starch foods (not potatoes) seemed ok, but condition unstable. Various dietary experimentation.

After the surgery (1/26/2017) I developed a small spot on my foot area that looks like a wound that won't heal. Related to diabetic wounds?

In Feb 2017: Fatigue is primary issue, some coldness here and there, some lower back pain.

April 2017: Still experimenting, bedridden from lower back pain at some points.

May 2017: Strong fatigue & pain, made worse by some recent pro & pre biotics. Getting some heart problems. Feels like that urge to run, except it's "alone/too much" like the rest of the body is not supporting it and can't handle it. Pretty scary and seems like it could result in heart attack (seems to be caused by certain prebiotics). In bed only listening to music because brain can't grasp anything else. Feel extremely overwhelmed. Feels like brain is unable to put any order (organize/defragment) around anything happening. Memory is completely shot. I couldn't even remember the previous sentence I wrote here. Some toxic intrusive thoughts. Chest heavy/tight, body weak, everything takes tremendous effort, brain non functioning, heart fluttering, sciatic & lower back pain.

-

Current diet: sticky rice, bananas, imodium, bimuno, creatine, sweet potato, smilax, a multi-strain probiotic with phages, b.yeast, romaine, mushrooms, some vegetables, onion, garlic, ACV, hot sauce, curry powder, culturelle, biogaia gastrus, 600mg calcium (sometimes helpful for diarrhea).

-

Highlights:

  • Feeling like shit to start. Barely made it there to begin with. On the way there after 15 minutes my back & hips were in bad pain which radiated to my knees making me wonder if I'd even make it. I leaned the seat back all the way so I could just barely see over the wheel, then tilted my head to look around it. Dangerous for sure, but I made it. Lying down with eyes closed in car all day everyday unless otherwise stated. Sleep schedule is messed up.

  • Probably food poisoned myself in the beginning with some home cooked food I brought unrefrigerated. Feeling pretty close to death.

  • Find out when I get there that Donor stool unstable; varied in many ways, including consistency. When asked about it he first said it was from a recent overseas trip. Then said he thinks it's his diet. Then later on (9 months) said he doesn't know when it started and never really noticed it himself. Already here and in terrible condition. I have xifaxan at home and know that xifaxan treats traveler's diarrhea, so will resort to that if necessary.

  • Continued to take bimuno prebiotic during FMTs.

  • No immune system reaction.

  • Tried to eat nuts, beans, oats at the same time as the stool to trigger bile production & metabolism with new microbes. No effect.

  • Various brain functions were triggered during this FMT. Feeling like brain was firing on all cylinders and connecting things which weren't previously. Feeling like I could write the best book ever, if only I get my health back. Something triggered the rapper inside of me as well, with many rhymes rolling around in my head. When does this wild ride let me off... and what will I be capable of when it's over... Even though I was fatigued, lying down all day every day, my creativity was active, so instead of being "trapped in my head" I was "released in my head". On the final day creativity was replaced with agitation/restlessness, and I became trapped in my mind, as I've experienced previously.

  • Seems to have permanent effects/benefits (changes to stool appearance & frequency, fatigue, brain, etc.), but still have to take the b.coagulans + phages, and culturelle + mushrooms, in order to be not in bed all day and close to heart failure. So it improved upon my previous condition but not a huge amount.

  • Developed new food intolerances, and brain inflammation that sent me to the ER some weeks after.

  • I think I contracted type 3 diabetes https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2769828/ from this donor.

  • In the past, this donor had told me they rarely masturbate and pray before they do. My sex drive was already poor from Prescript-Assist, but this donor seemed to cause some circulation/immune system disfunction to where masturbating actually feels bad.

-

Post FMT:

6/12/2017: Seeing small but significant improvements to fatigue, pain, brain function, sex drive, sleep quality/dreams, skin. Face looks younger but a bit swollen. Throat a bit sore, gargled salt water. Memory still really shit. Light foot cramps.

6/14/2017: Starting to feel sick again. All improvements were only temporary.

6/15/2017: Feeling a bit better after taking floraphage. Vivid dreaming, then hallucinated a girl whispering my name, while I was waking up. Made me jump. I've had that hallucination previously though (soon after the 2011 xifaxan antibiotic).

6/17/2017: After adding b.coagulans + phages I started to improve again. Able to sit at PC instead of in bed all day. Pain much lessened, dreaming again, sex drive & energy up. Small improvements to brain function, but still pretty poor. Some anxiety.

6/21/2017: Seems to have permanent effects/benefits (changes to stool appearance & frequency, fatigue, brain, etc.), but still have to take the b.coagulans + phages, and culturelle + mushrooms, in order to be not in bed all day and close to heart failure. So it improved upon my previous condition but not a huge amount.

Having some issues with prebiotic foods & a new strain of b.coagulans. On a tightrope so close to death, since I'm declining doing nothing isn't an option. Seems no matter what I choose (try something new or not) I'm risking my life. Prior to a meal contemplating on it for a few hours. What went through my head before taking the first bite was "if I die I'm going to be so mad".

6/27/2017: Phages seemed like they might have been making things worse, but after stopping them for 2 days I was feeling sick & nauseous, and cold, and got diarrhea. So I'm going to take xifaxan since it seems that this donor got traveler's diarrhea and passed the bug to me, and xifaxan treats this. I had some left over from the stuff my primary gave me a while back to target the soil bacteria symptoms.

7/9/2017: Noticing an unhealthy shade of pink on my eyelids that I've noticed on republicans/conservatives and other unhealthy white people, along with the skin spots (sun damage/old people) increasing. And my brain is feeling inflamed. Rumination. The air pollution in this apartment (Phoenix, AZ) is just whacking me while I'm down. - my sensitivity to this went away some months later.

7/13/2017: Took xifaxan for 3 days, it worked but only as long I was taking it. Severe fatigue, diarrhea, and brain function worsening & feeling inflamed. Light sensitive, eyes burning, red & dry under eyes. Feeling incredibly ill. Red dots on various parts of body that look like busted red blood vessels. GI wouldn't give me anything but Eluxadoline, so went to ER.

ER dismissed me with nothing since nothing showed on their extremely basic/non comprehensive blood & urine tests besides low white & red counts. Seems like it was a new/increased food intolerance that caused this. Maybe the amount of oil in eggplant was what triggered the amount of worsening that put me in the ER, but I also see eggplant listed on some FODMAP lists.

Even though Eluxadoline seems to help with fatigue, I'm getting some brain inflammation & wooziness.

7/15/2017: Fatigue lessening after taking phages + b.coagulans Produra, and eggplant meal making it through. Lower back & hip pain coming back from sitting in chair instead of lying in bed.

Conventional stool tests & uBiome 16s SmartGut show nothing.

GIs and primary care doc visits useless.

7/19/2017 - 8/14/2017: FMTs with donor 6 & 7 + 2nd try with donor 5.

1/20/2018: Figured out that many/most prebiotic foods (bananas, garlic, maple syrup, etc.) are now causing me soft BMs. I'm thinking I contracted this from Donor 5.

5/27/2018: Still light head trouble, but have recovered enough brain function to do this FMT experience write up (over a few weeks). Eyelids still unhealthy pink color, sometimes darker/red. Face still looking very bad/unhealthy, off-colored. Flatulence generally has the same "plant-type" smell that changed after this donor.

01/01/2019: The new problems I developed with various fruits, FODMAPs, and brain function make me think I contracted type 3 diabetes https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2769828/ from this donor. And now that I think of it, the donor’s sugar-smelling stool, frequent night time urination, low brain function, etc. were probably all signs of this.

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Full log:

Left on Tuesday, May 30, 2017, around 10-11pm, ~6hr drive. Had a BM before leaving.

May 31, 2017: 1st donor stool soft & not formed, dark, smelled like cooked liver. No impact.

Donor recently got back from a few months overseas trip to multiple countries. He said prior to the trip his stool was firm and consistent, but after the trip it made it soft and unstable. Already here and in terrible condition. I have xifaxan at home and know that xifaxan treats traveler's diarrhea, so will resort to that if necessary.

24 hours later 2nd donor stool was more formed & firm, dark, smelled sweet, like undigested sugar. No impact. Haven't eaten much (~5 bananas during the trip and first 2 days), nor had a BM (since leaving home). Forced self to eat (a couple bananas) so stool makes it all the way through to the colon. Starting to get gas (flatulence) 12 hours later, and feel better.

Fri, June 2, 2017

[Ate some food (sweet potatoes, onions, mushrooms, leafy greens) I cooked at home] and brought with me. It has been sitting in the trunk for a few days now. It has a light white mold on it, but I read that white mold on fermented food wasn't dangerous (comment: even if this is the case it was likely also bacterially contaminated, but low brain function + poverty = poor decisions). Doesn't smell really bad. 02:30

Have continued to take imodium even though no BM, because of fatigue & heart pounding.

[Ate more of the moldy food]. 06:45. Still hip, back, knee pain. Temperature intolerance & strong fatigue 15:30. Still gassy. I stink. Thinking moldy food has delayed detrimental effect so threw away rest of it and ate [1/2 cup of raw oats]. 23:50.

June 3, 2017

Starting to feel better. [1/2 cup raw oats]. 01:10. Still pain, but warmed up a bit. 1st BM, all nuggets, speckled, off-brown (obviously stuff I ate at home prior to any poop). Shower & shave. [2 apples]. 04:30. Pain. [1 cup oats] 06:34. imodium before sleep because heart pounding. Lots of gas. Surgery foot wound looked like it went away. Other small improvements. [1 apple] 21:30.

Donor away for two days.

June 4, 2017

[1 apple]. 00:12. [1/2 cup oats]. 01:54. [1 apple]. 05:00. Pain has lessened. [2 apples]. 06:56. Cold, and farts have a smell 08:10. [1/2 cup oats] 09:30. Sleep schedule shifting. [2 apples]. 11:58. [2oz donor poop that resembled previous high quality donors. Culturelle, biogaia gastrus]. 20:00. Chest/lung pain & heaviness for past ~18 hours. (Hindsight comment: Was thinking it was from moldy food making it to colon, but was likely from stopping the imodium) [1 apple]. 22:05. [1 cup oats]. 23:39.

June 5, 2017

2nd BM, formed/stiff, dark like donor's. 01:07. [1 apple]. 02:06. Sick/nauseous & more fatigued. Still weak & pain. [1 cup oats]. 04:17. gas. [1 apple]. 06:48. [1 cup oats]. 08:39. [peanuts & walnuts]. 10:46.

Stopped imodium for a few days now because BMs were so infrequent. I was also hoping it would help pass the poisoned food. And 2nd BM was so drastically different from normal, and similar to donor's, that I thought it would be ok. I was thinking the bad symptoms I was getting was from the moldy food, but they were most likely from lack of imodium, which I normally take for fatigue.

Sleeping on and off till June 6, 01:30. Cold.

June 6, 2017

[watermelon]. 02:21. [watermelon]. 3:43. Still fatigued, lying down all day. Hoping that after next BM I'll get better because all the moldy food will be cleared. Donor missed another day (not due to absence of BM, which they have 2x/day). [1 cup oats]. 05:20. [watermelon]. 07:41. Noticed surgery wound still there, split in half, color of scar. [1 cup oats]. 10:18. [1.5oz donor poop, soft/formed, dark]. 10:39. [bimuno]. 11:30. [watermelon]. 13:00. 3rd BM, formed, a little lighter than last time & mixed with red color, mixed smell - cooked liver & sweet. Still pain. [1 cup oats]. 14:26. Can't sleep, still gas. [1 cup oats]. 17:22. Not sleeping well/long. Cold.

Restarting imodium because of cold & fatigue. Was hoping that after poisoned food cleared fatigue would go away, and also that the immune reaction I experience with the previous high quality donors might occur. Turned out to not be the case, so I restarted imodium.

June 7, 2017

[1 cup oats, imodium]. 02:00. Starting to feel better. [watermelon]. 05:54. [1 cup oats]. 08:35. Still gas. Light heart pounding here and there past couple days. [watermelon]. 12:44. [1 cup oats, imodium]. 14:49. Can't sleep. [watermelon]. 17:00. [2oz donor poop, firm, same as other 2 good donors. Bimuno, peanuts, walnuts]. 17:53. I ate nuts in the same meal on purpose, trying to trigger bile production, hoping that the microbes in the donor poop would participate in the bile metabolism and improve my faulty bile metabolism. Lower back pain. A bit cold at night.

June 8, 2017

Woke around 04:00. Didn't sleep well. Gum a bit sore. [2 pears, creatine]. 06:30. Some pain still. [1 cup oats, imodium]. 08:49. gas. Pretty strong fatigue, heart pounding. Got quite bad. Wtf? Was considering at the time it might be something similar to the "got temporarily worse before getting better" that I experienced with the previous high quality donors. Now I think it may have been a mix of a weaker version of that paired with the high fat meal which triggered the bile production that causes problems. [1 pear] 12:01. [~3oz donor poop, twice as large and softer than yesterday. Canned pinto beans, bimuno]. 12:53. [rest of 40oz canned beans]. 14:56. Gassy, brain function (still) low. [1 cup oats]. 17:20. Plenty of pain. [2 pears]. 19:15. [peanuts & walnuts]. 20:00. Fatigue lessening. Cold at night.

June 9, 2017

[3 bananas, imodium]. 05:09. Hip & lower back pain. Realizing nuts = cold & pain. [1 cup oats]. 07:15. 4th BM, soft/formed, light brown, only smells like donor's. Was feeling pretty good prior to the BM, but afterwards fatigue increased, & heart pounding. [3 bananas, creatine]. 12:44. Shaky weak, tired, restless. [2 bananas]. 15:56. [2 bananas, imodium]. 17:30. [3 large bananas]. 18:53. Can't sleep.

June 10, 2017

[2 bananas, imodium]. 08:20. Reading for a bit, then resting.

Going home because it doesn't look like any more will do anything new. Wanted to end on a "good note", in that I do last FMT after stopping meals with fat/protein (bile), but the last poop I got from him was quite soft, barely formed, and pretty stinky, so I didn't bother.

---

Donor 5 (2nd try), and #6 & 7:

7/19/2017 - 8/14/2017

1 week after ER visit. Told previous donors about ER and begged for help, but they didn't care, so only option is 5 again since docs are clueless.

Donor 5 says his stool is back to normal for the past 3 weeks. When I get there it turns out to not be the case at all. So I contact donor 6 after arriving.

Donor 6 is white male ~30. Neither fit nor overweight. Not someone I'd pick out of a line up to be an FMT donor, but has no major health problems, is well-functioning mentally, and says he can have firm stools if he eats the right stuff (in practice, his stool regularly varies from type 1-4, light brown). Breast-fed, c-section, vegan and long time vegetarian. Seasonal hay fever symptoms. Occasional ear/sinus infection that has necessitated antibiotics twice in the last 3 years. No other usage. Some other somewhat minor health issues. Minor health problems in immediate family members. One significant issue with stress seeming to cause a breakdown of the gut microbiome/immune system/intestinal permeability (which I only learned about later on). Might be due to something like this:

"stress hormone cortisol induces virulence in the oral microbiome" https://www.biorxiv.org/node/103729.full

Donor 7 is white female ~30. Vegan. Fairly physically fit. Possibly someone I'd pick out of a lineup. Depression issues. History of eating disorder many years ago. Previous antibiotic use of at least flagyl some years ago. Stool type varies. Takes a multi-strain probiotic daily. Can't remember if there was anything else significant.

Current diet (from day before): Blueberries, xifaxan, creatine, imodium, rice, radishes, tomatoes, hot sauce, ACV, spices, eluxadoline, onions, mushrooms, smilax, garlic, culturelle, bananas.

BM before leaving. Fasting day of the trip. A bit of light hip & lower back pain on the way there. Head feeling woozy & eyes burning, so had to stop & rest often, even overnight. Some nausea after probiotics, and heart pounding & chest heavy in the morning.

In addition to the xifaxan I took a bunch of multi-strain probiotics (with phages) the day before. These usually severely increase fatigue, but they seem to be "disruptors", so I figured taking them the day before might disrupt the local microbiome similar to antibiotics and thus give the new microbes an easier time to settle in. This is probably not useful.

Highlights:

Got initial brain & energy boost from a very small amount (1/4th tsp - less than 1 capsule worth) from Donor 6 within 30-60 minutes. Breathing more rapid, intestinal contractions, light heart pounding, brain & energy improving. I was surprised that such a small amount could have such a significant effect. I was also lying there thinking "can this really be true that host genetics & gut microbiome are so unrelated?" Since Donor 6 doesn't seem genetically/physically gifted. Basically seeming like Elon Musk's stool would be equivalent to Usain Bolt’s (which I doubted, and still do). [In hindsight, this was a bad analogy. Elon isn’t intelligent, but his physical condition is poor]

2nd donor stool was much larger, type 4, brown. Used a lot, as much as I could. Reaction seems weaker & different than last time. Just got sleepy, cold, gassy. Fatigue increased after 2nd one, likely due to undigested nuts in stool. That small amount yesterday being as powerful as it was got my hopes up. This bigger one being trivial makes everything come crashing down. Feeling worse and desperate. My BM was soft at end and was feeling shitty so didn't seem like effects were strong, so decided to go back and try with Donor 5.

Donor 5's poop still intermittently soft even though he said it was back to normal for ~3 weeks, so seems like he picked up (or had long standing) a chronic stomach bug that he passed on to me, which is doing more harm in me since my gut microbiome and immune system are weak.

Donor 6's dark & frozen stool I got before leaving to Donor 5 possibly caused a very light reaction. My BMs also looking better, but not sure if it was due to Donor 6's or Donor 5's. Donor 5 is missing so many days that it's hard for me to tell who's stool was responsible for the improvements. Starting to see red dots that might be busted blood vessels on my abdomen, above knees, and on the backs of my hands.

Donor 5 is leaving overseas and is missing so many days (4 in a row) so going back to Donor 6. Don't seem to be getting the same benefits from Donor 5's stool this time around, but so many days missed that it's hard to tell.

Slight improvements from Donor 6's stool. Via enema seems a little stronger, and is reducing the red dots & improving BMs. Looks like I was getting the largest benefits when eating safe foods (grapes, white rice, tomatoes), but when trying to introduce foods that I couldn't previously handle (probably dates, bananas, garlic, and some spices) I got worse. I asked donor 6 to try and eat more protein to trigger bile production and make his stools darker (previous 2 high quality donors had identical dark stools), but it didn't seem to have a major impact. I then tried triggering my own bile production with almond milk, right after oral FMT, and that didn't seem to work either.

Since results seem weak I'm trying Donor 7. Donor 7's doesn't seem to have any good benefits. Made me nauseous, increased BM frequency and softened stool. They might have ate something bad that changed their stool that day. Going home to try and get an antibiotic to kill off whatever Donor 5 passed on to me, then will try with Donor 6 again, since Donor 6's stool doesn't seem strong enough to completely counter what Donor 5 gave me.

Developed cheese/dairy intolerance from one of the previous 3 donors (5, 6, 7). And picked up a unique/bad BO.

-

Post FMT:

Inept GI doctors at Banner in Phoenix. I was sitting there with one of them wondering if this was one of the people you see in the news who get into medical practice with a fake license. I suppressed an urge to ask him if he was even a real doctor. Conclusion: "Too complicated", "there is no standard protocol for what you have and our tests are useless so there's nothing we can do". Doctors handing out antibiotics as "prophylactics" and for trivial things like acne, yet won't give abx for an obvious active infection contracted from feces. "Flagyl was helpful", "yeah but we don't know why so we don't give it". Facepalm. Fucking morons drug tested me and told me to come back in 3 weeks.

Primary care doc agrees to try various antimicrobials after I shared this https://www.indiatimes.com/health/healthyliving/everything-you-need-to-know-about-encephalitis-the-deadly-disease-that-took-the-life-of-60-children-in-the-last-five-days-in-gorakhpur-327801.html and others with him.

August 14, 2017 - last FMTs.

August 17, 2017 - Starting Metronidazole/Flagyl antibiotic.

I theorized that xifaxan being only temporarily/weakly helpful was due to it not being active in the large intestine, and thus flagyl should be more effective. This turned out to be correct. Again up to the severely ill patient to figure out everything on their own since doctors were clueless.

Metronidazole/Flagyl 250mg 3xday 7 days, 8/17/2017 - no side effects. Stopped diarrhea (maybe in conjunction with zinc). Mostly cleared up a rough/dry patch of skin on my left inner elbow.

8/17/2017: Definitely seem to have picked up a unique BO from a donor. The odor was also detectable in the donor stool.

8/28/17: Diarrhea gone. Zinc helpful as well. No side effects from Flagyl. Flagyl helpful once it made it all the way through, but then something in my diet seemed to trigger problems again. Seems like things that trigger bile/liver (in hindsight, spinach seems problematic, maybe due to iron). Primary issue right now is brain feeling inflamed, eyes burning & sensitive to light, red under eyes, which gets a lot worse when something in my diet triggers the dark green BMs.

Nystatin 500,000 unit oral tab 1xday 10 days 8/29/2017 - seemed to moderately restore dreams & sex drive. Promethazine could have played a (possibly primary) role though. Sweating increased and the unique body odor from a donor broke out strongly. Stopped after 3rd day.

10/12/2017: Seems to make head worse. Again made me sweat, and the smell came back but not as bad. Softens stool.

10/17/2017: Seemed to allow the red dots to return as well.

Promethazine 25mg 3xday 9/1/2017 - Took for headache & nausea; didn't work, just made me weak & exhausted. Heavy sedative. Down 5lbs to 150. Seems to improve the head/eye symptoms via improving my sleep. Got a light pain in gallbladder area after 1st taking it. Seemed to stop the green BMs. Taking it 1x/day right before bed.

Primary issue is still brain feeling inflamed, eyes burning & sensitive to light, red under eyes, have to keep eyes covered most of the day. Increased difficulty getting up to cook. Haven't been able to do laundry for a long time (1-2 months?).

Nitazoxanide (alinia) 500mg 2xday 9/15/2017. Seems to be making things worse in some ways, similar to the antifungal (nystatin) it seemed like it let the infection spread to my chest and I had some chest heaviness, pain, and stiffness. Head hasn't cleared up. But energy is up after 1.5 days. Made my pee the yellow tint of the Indonesian energy drink. Made BMs stinky. Stopped after 3rd day.

Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) Bactrim DS 800-160 TAB 2xday 9/16/2017. Didn't seem to do much either. Both Bactrim & Alinia caused some changes in BM with stomach bubbling. Neither one stopped the body odor. Skin feeling nice 9/18/2017. Stopped after 3 days.

10/7/2017: 2nd trial of it since doc won't give me anything else. Was taking it in the same meal with zinc the first time. Just looked up that zinc can inhibit antibiotics, so stopping zinc for this time. Improved skin again. Probable anti-diarrheal effects, but doesn't seem to directly target the head problem.

10/8/2017: Seems to increase fatigue, possibly makes head worse. Bringing back night terror type stuff. Only improvement is skin.

Still in bed all day with eyes covered because head still feels inflamed & woozy, eyes burning, red & dry below eyes. Soft BMs used to trigger stronger fatigue, but now make head problems worse.

10/11/2017: Brain MRI showing lacunar infarction. Right eye is drooping. Felt like I was going to have a stroke or worse a few days ago.

10/11/2017: BO died down a bit and changed to where I'm mostly smelling like one of the donors now, though it's still pretty strong when out. My hair is looking like donor 6's (not great).

12/24/2017: Still smelling light donor BO even though BMs are compact. There's also an occasional urine/old people smell.

Full logs:

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Unfortunately for me, donor 6 "forgot" the first day even though I reminded him the previous night and this morning. So in a lot of agony since I was counting on the FMT to counteract the problems that the probiotics cause.

Friday, July 21, 2017

Donor 5 has stomach ache and soft stool, so not doing it. Donor 6 agrees. [Very small amount from donor 6, about 1/4th tsp, with water & imodium]. 18:30. 30-60 minutes later getting some reactions. Breathing more rapid, intestinal contractions, light heart pounding, brain & energy improving. Hungry at 20:15.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

[imodium]. 09:17. Exhausted - effects seem to have wore off. [2 bananas]. 12:49. [Larger amount (6-8oz) from donor 6. Firm with nuggets, dark brown. Used a lot - as much as I could]. 14:00. Resting. Reaction seems weaker & different than last time. Just got sleepy, cold, gassy. 16:45. [3 bananas]. 16:55. That small amount yesterday being as powerful as it was got my hopes up. This bigger one being trivial makes everything come crashing down. Still low back & hip & arm pain 20:00. Feeling worse & desperate. [imodium] 21:10.

Sunday, July 23, 2017 - Donor doesn't have BM today.

10:20 Feeling a little better. [imodium, 2 bananas]. 11:04. [2 tomatoes] 13:40. [1 pear] 15:02. [2 bananas] 16:45. [2 tomatoes] 17:55. [2 bananas] 19:17. gas. [2 bananas, imodium] 21:27. Short walk to the store, toes cramping. 22:00 Improving throughout the day (energy & pain). Can’t sleep. [18oz old/dry blueberries] 23:00. [3 tomatoes] 0:57. Lower back pain. 02:34. Brain turning back on. [1 cup oats] 02:49. Tasted quite off, probably the water. 1st BM, very compact, hard to pass, dark brown 03:05.

Monday, July 24, 2017

10:00 Tired, nighttime wood, light dreams, gas, some low back pain still, body still weak. [18oz old/dry blueberries, imodium] 12:46. Shower, ears hurting 15:18. [1/2 bag cherries] 15:48. [1/4th bag cherries, 1 tomato] 16:58. [1 tomato, few cherries] 17:35. [3 tomatoes] 18:30. 2nd BM, dark brown nuggets, then compact brown, then dark soft & loose. 19:45. [6oz poop from donor 6, very compact with nuggets, looked darker but hard to tell since frozen. Looked ideal though. Used a lot, as much as I could. Few cherries] 21:20. Heading back to Donor 5 cuz feeling shitty today & last BM looks headed back to soft, but feeling better after BM. [cherries, imodium] 23:49. [2 tomatoes] 0:14.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 - Donor 5 forgets again, no FMT today.

09:40. Feeling rested. Maybe slight reaction (hot/cold flash) to poop during night, but hard to tell. Still back pain. Night time wood & light dreams. [cherries, imodium] 10:55. [3 tomatoes] 13:38. At library. 3rd BM, dark, compact, then formed, then soft. 14:30. [1/4th bag cherries] 16:45. Resting in car. Library for a bit then fatigue, lower back pain, stomach bubbling, gas. [4 tomatoes] 19:24. [3 tomatoes, imodium] 20:36. [1/4th bag cherries] 22:52.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Light dreams, morning wood 10:00. Lots of gas at night. [1/4th bag cherries, imodium] 10:50. [1/2 of 4oz poop from Donor 5, firm/formed, dark, uniform, used the firmer half] 12:27 [3 tomatoes] 12:57. [1/2 papaya] 15:04. Resting & using library PC on and off during day. [1/2 papaya] 17:30. gas throughout the day. [1/2 melon] 19:27. [1/2 melon, 2 tomatoes, imodium] 20:43. Improvements to brain, energy, pain. [Cherries, 1 carrot, 3 tomatoes] 22:24.

Thursday, July 27, 2017 - Donor 5 fighting cold so no FMT today.

11:00 Morning wood, light dreams, gas died down after Donor 5 FMT. [3/4th bag cherries, imodium] 11:39. 4th BM, large, compact, dark brown, reddish, smelled like donor’s. 12:15. Library, lower back pain. [1/2 bag cherries] 13:36. [5 tomatoes] 15:50. [1 carrot, 2 tomatoes, 1/2 bag cherries] 18:10. Some gas today. Light lower back & hip pain. [4 tomatoes, 1 carrot, imodium] 19:55. [1/2 bag cherries] 21:40. Feeling a little energetic. [1 carrot, 3 tomatoes] 22:54.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Getting quite cold at 4am. Can’t sleep since 4 because too cold. Peeing a lot. [1/2 bag cherries, imodium] 08:14. Some nausea. BM, large, brown & firm, then soft & darker. 10:08. Library. [2 tomatoes, 1/4th bag cherries] 11:17. Resting/library. [5 tomatoes] 13:42. 2nd BM, dark brown, large, very soft 14:34. Lower back pain, have to lie down because of it. [1/2 bag cherries] 15:30. Donor 5 says his BMs are back to soft. Stomach pain from gas. [4 tomatoes] 17:30. Resting. [1.5 carrots, 1 tomato] 18:30. Resting. Lots of stomach bubbling. [1/4th bag cherries] 20:23. [2 tomatoes] 21:05. [1 tomato] 21:35. [1.5oz Donor 5 poop, firm, dark, uniform] 22:55.

Saturday, July 29, 2017 – Donor 5 too busy.

[3 bananas, imodium] 09:25. Resting/library. [6 roma tomatoes] 13:00. [4 bananas] 15:20. [4 tomatoes] 18:00. Starting to feel sick & fatigue like diarrhea coming. 18:40. [1/4th bag cherries] 19:35. [3 tomatoes, imodium] 20:31. [1 banana, a few grapes] 21:14. BM, large, reddish dark brown, formed then soft 21:39. [3 pickles] 21:47. [3 bananas, a few dates] 23:01. Appetite unquenchable, feeling a bit better/energetic. [2 pickles] 23:28. Breathing & heart rate increase & heating up & energetic 0:20. [3 bananas, dates] 01:32. Light heart pounding, can’t sleep.

Sunday, July 30, 2017 – Donor 5 too busy.

~157lbs (6'8")

10:15 Resting. Morning wood. Not hungry. [12oz blueberries, imodium] 12:18. [1 pickle, 12oz blueberries] 14:12. Shower. [4 tomatoes, handful of grapes, handful of dates] 17:00 [1 pickle] 17:48. Resting, fatigue increasing, light heart pounding 18:39. Not seeing the same benefits with Donor 5 FMT this time around, but he’s missing so many days that it’s hard to tell. [1 handful grapes] 18:54. [4 tomatoes] 19:48. [few handfuls of dates] 20:31. [imodium] 21:17. Feeling antsy/energetic, short walk to gym. Can’t sleep. [1 bunch of grapes] 0:13. No BM today.

Monday, July 31, 2017 – Donor 5 gets a colonic instead of giving poop.

Still got cold at night. Night time wood & sex drive finally up a bit. [imodium] 09:50. [a few handfuls of grapes] 10:39. Resting, library. BM, firm/formed & brown/light brown, then soft & darker 12:34. [4 tomatoes] 13:53. [1 pickle, 2 tomatoes, a few dates into lots of dates] 15:18. Resting. Library. [1 bunch grapes] 17:30. Resting/library. [1 bunch grapes, 1 pickle] 19:17. Resting. [4 tomatoes, handful grapes, imodium] 20:55. [1 bunch grapes] 22:18. Reading. [1.5 pickles, 2 tomatoes] 23:17. [1 bunch grapes] 0:33.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

08:50. Feeling rested. Morning wood. Reading. [1 bunch grapes, imodium] 09:56. Resting. Sleeping 1hr. Library. Donor 5’s poop today is soft again so not using it and going back to Donor 6. [1 bunch grapes] 14:30. [grapes] 18:25. Resting. Head starting to feel “full” & tired again. [grapes, dates, imodium] 20:08. Head woozy. [few grapes]. 21:29. [3 tomatoes, few grapes] 22:15. Can’t sleep. Not feeling well. 23:33. [forced 2 tomatoes & grapes] 23:56. BM, compact then firm then formed then very soft & darker. [3 tomatoes] 12:56.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

10:00. Night time wood. Feeling a bit better. [imodium] 10:15. [2 handfuls grapes] 11:10. Resting, library. [1 bunch grapes] 15:30. Donor 6 didn’t have a bag with him while out today so no poop. Resting. Library. [1 bunch grapes] 18:08. Head hurting/full a bit. Resting. [3 tomatoes] 19:30. [imodium, 1 bunch grapes] 21:18. Starting to feel ill 22:18.

Thursday, August 3, 2017 – 156lbs.

[imodium] 09:30. Not hungry then fasting. [1/2 bag grapes] 15:14. Shower. Resting. [1/2 bag grapes] 16:57. [few handfuls cherries, 2 small tomatoes] 18:42. [handful cherries, 4 small tomatoes, imodium] 20:05. Still resting. [few handfuls cherries] 21:35. Donor 6 didn’t have a BM today, and I didn’t either. I’m feeling a bit better too. Maybe the dates & pickles were bad & the grapes were good.

Friday, August 4, 2017

10:20. gas & boner at night. [imodium, 1/2 bunch grapes] 10:57. BM, dark, compact (most) then very soft. 11:40. [5 oz Donor 6’s poop, dark brown, very firm with nuggets, uniform] 13:15. Minor stomach bubbling, slightly tired/sick. [rice, vinegar, spices] 16:21. [few handfuls figs] 18:30. [rice, vinegar, spices, 1 small tomato, imodium] 20:52. Couldn’t sleep till 5am. Stomach bubbling.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

10:00. Laptop in bed. [imodium, 3 tomatoes, rice, vinegar, spices] 12:38. Some fatigue. [tomatoes, rice, vinegar, spices] 16:47. Fatigue. Laptop in bed. [1/2 bunch grapes, 1 large tomato] 19:00. Fatigue. [rice, tomatoes, vinegar, spices, figs, imodium] 21:00. Laptop. [few handfuls figs] 0:03. Donor 6 didn’t have BM, said higher protein seems to stop him up.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

09:00. Light dreams, sex drive coming back (was only temporary), gas. Resting for an hour cuz head hurting a bit. [5 bananas, imodium] 10:56. [1/2 of: 8oz poop, dark, compact w/nuggets, uniform, ideal] 11:50. A bit sleepy & gassy. [rest of poop, handful of figs, 1 banana] 15:38. A bit cold, resting. Stomach still bubbling & gassy. [2 tomatoes, rice, wine vinegar, tabasco] 19:37. Gassy, tired. [imodium, rice, 3 small tomatoes, wine vinegar, tabasco] 22:30. Can’t sleep. Feels like circulation is improving. 01:45. 04:00. BM, dark, firm then formed & sticky. 04:55. Light hip pain. Bonor before bed – can’t remember the last time this occurred, very long ago.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Donor wakes me for poop time: [3oz poop, dark, all nuggets] 09:45. Can’t go back to sleep. [6 bananas, imodium]. 13:03. Reddit, videos. Got really sleepy after 2 hours and slept till 18:00. [rice, wine vinegar, tabasco, 2 tomatoes]. 18:17. Resting, microbiomedigest – brain function still low. [4 bananas] 20:28. Videos, resting, light headache. [5 bananas, imodium] 22:30. Videos in bed. Light headache, had to turn off light. [4 bananas] 0:29. Resting in bed. BM, brown, firm, a little sticky & formed at end. BMs are definitely being changed; diarrhea at the end is gone, and not dark anymore. Not peeing at night at all since donor 6's FMTs.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

[imodium] 10:40. Reddit, videos. [Used half of 10oz poop, dark/dark brown, 1/2 nuggets, used the nuggets part, 2 bananas] 12:40. Reddit, videos. Maybe missed a meal of 4-5 bananas here, but not sure. [5 bananas, handful dates] 16:31. Still videos in bed. Out for food, fatigue increasing, light hip pain. [4 small-med tomatoes, rice, veg, garlic, spices, tabasco, red wine vinegar, imodium] 22:48. Fatigue in bed. Light lower back pain.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017 - Donor 6 didn’t have a BM.

[imodium] 11:30. [grapes] 12:35. Fatigue, resting. Light hip pain. Getting cold, fatigue/sleepy increasing, feeling a bit sick 14:49. Large BM, firm & dark then formed/soft & lighter, sticky 15:55. Yeah, FMTs are having very little effect. Not sure what to do. Donor consuming higher protein to trigger bile production doesn’t seem to be having a significant impact. [3 small-med tomatoes, rice, chunky salsa, veg, tabasco, red wine vinegar, garlic, spices] 16:47. Cold, fatigue, laptop in bed. Looks like soil bacteria symptoms are returning.

3 things to try, but all seem unlikely: 1) freezing the stool. 2) enema. 3) washing FMT down with almond milk to trigger my own bile production. A few of my fingernails are dark blue (went away after a while, and I also warmed up). [1 large tomato, rice, chunky salsa, veg, tabasco, red wine vinegar, garlic, spices] 19:35. Fatigue, laptop in bed. Reddit, microbiomedigest. Eyes burning a bit, skin below eyes is red and dry. [grapes, imodium] 22:36. Fatigue, head feeling shitty. In bed, eyes closed. Warm 00:18. [handful of grapes, handful dates]. 01:00. Fatigue in bed, head & eyes still feeling shitty. Peeing more often since last BM.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Stomach hurting during night, maybe due to trapped gas. Head still feeling shitty. Woke at noon. Reddit, videos. [grapes, imodium] 13:13. Fatigue in bed, eyes covered. BM, firm & light brown, then formed/soft & dark brown. [Most of: 1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, variety of spices, chunky salsa, tabasco, red wine vinegar] 19:20. Fatigue. 3oz poop, dark brown nuggets, did enema with it - about 4 or more basters full. Lying down in positions, feeling somewhat better, no obvious effects from liquid in colon. [rest of rice + garlic, 1 bunch grapes, imodium]. 22:40. Videos in bed. [couple handfuls dates, handful grapes] 01:08. In the past weeks (since donor 5 location) I’ve been seeing red dots on various parts of my body (above knees, chest/abdomen, back of hands) that look like busted blood vessels.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Didn’t feel any effect from the enema. [3oz poop, dark/dark brown, nuggets, chased down with almond milk, imodium] 12:13. A bit cold. In bed, reddit, videos. Fatigue increased for a bit, with feeling a bit sick, then went away. [1/2 bunch grapes] 14:57. Fatigue, in bed, but feeling a bit better. Bit of lower back pain. Microbiomedigest. [rice, veg, two tomatoes, garlic, tabasco, red wine vinegar, variety spices] 17:15. Fatigue, in bed. Reddit, videos. [rice, veg, two tomatoes, garlic, tabasco, red wine vinegar, variety spices, imodium] 21:57. Fatigue, videos in bed. Have to close eyes for a bit because head hurting. Feeling worse & desperate 0:30. Thinking the enema was good and the almond milk was bad since no BM today but feeling worse later on once the almond milk had time to moved through GI tract. [1 bunch grapes] 02:17.

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Feeling a bit better. Some light lower back pain. [grapes, imodium] ~13:00. Getting cold after a while. Fatigue in bed, reddit. Resting, eyes closed for a bit. Feeling a bit restless/irritated. [rice, 2 tomatoes, garlic, tabasco, red wine vinegar, spices] 17:25. Fatigue, videos in bed. BM, compact then some soft at end, brown/dark brown. Red dots seem to be decreasing since enema. Enema maybe slightly more helpful, but since my BM still soft, it doesn’t seem adequate. Light lower back pain. [3oz dark brown nuggets, did enema with it, about 3 basters worth]. 19:35. Lying in position, watching videos. [grapes & dates] 20:37. Heart rate increase a bit, bit of gas, sleepy 22:00. [grapes, imodium] 22:54. Videos in bed. Resting intermittently but can’t sleep. [rice, variety spices, red wine vinegar, tabasco] 01:45. Videos in bed.

Sunday, August 13, 2017 - First (and 2nd/last) donor 7 FMT today.

Night time wood. [2oz soft, not formed, dark brown, from donor 7, used about half. imodium, few dates] 09:30. Light but prolonged reaction - breathing rate increase, light flushing. Resting/sleeping till 11:39, boner whole time. I think donor 7's was soft due to food poisoning or eating something their gut microbiome couldn't handle. Feeling like the soft poop is pushing a BM from me. ~2oz dark nuggets from Donor 6 that I’m keeping on ice. [grapes, 1 nugget Donor 6’s poop] 13:00. Fatigue, videos in bed. BM, brown, compact then formed/soft. Stomach feeling queasy for a bit. [most of: 1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, garlic, variety spices, red wine vinegar, tabasco, 1 nugget Donor 6’s poop] 15:20. Videos in bed. [rest of rice & tomatoes, garlic, 1 nugget Donor 6’s poop, handful dates] 16:57. Videos in bed. Eyes back to hurting. [grapes, 1 nugget from Donor 6] 19:20. Videos in bed. [used the firmer parts of ~4oz dark poop from donor 7, formed/firm & soft in some parts, swallowed about 2oz] 20:45. No symptoms, feeling fine, everything from earlier seems to have worn off. [rice, lemon, variety spices, hot sauce, handful dates, imodium, 1 nugget from Donor 6] 22:45. Feeling kind of happy/giddy. 2nd BM, brown, uniform, formed, a bit stinky. 23:25. Fatigue, stomach full. Not feeling good anymore. But back to normal/better after a bit. Enema with last ~3oz Donor 6’s & 7’s mixed 01:10. Feeling a bit sick & nauseous 01:24. Bit of light heart pounding 01:39.

Monday, August 14, 2017 - Final FMTs, returning home.

Microbiomedigest. 10:15. Light lower back pain. [handful grapes, imodium, half of: 4oz dark nuggets from Donor 6] 11:27. Eyes still red and stuff. Feeling ok, but pretty sure I’m gonna get worse soon. Bit of light gas. BM, brown, firm then formed then soft, a bit stinky. [grapes & rest of Donor 6's poop] 14:30. Head hurting. [grapes] 16:40. Eyes hurting, have to take off glasses. [grapes] 18:50. [3 bananas] 20:00. Lower back pain, fatigue. [Part 1: 1 cup (dry) rice, 2 large tomatoes, 1/2 bunch spinach, 1 pickle, 1 small onion, MHS, ACV, spices, garlic, b vitamins, Calcitrate/citracal (630mg) with D3 (500 IU), imodium] 22:55. In bed from lower back pain. Knee pain. 2nd BM, formed/soft, loose/parts, uniform, dark brown, a bit sticky & pale. Drinking tons of water, hands a bit dry. Tired but also hungry. [part 2: rice, veg, tomatoes; added 2 more large tomatoes] 03:35.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

160lbs

Night time wood. Face is swollen, throat a bit dry/sore. Reddit, videos. Feeling pretty good, voice deep. [5 smallish pears, imodium] 13:07. Out to GI, restless, hip & lower back pain. [part 3/rest of rice & tomatoes, 2 small pears] 16:41. In bed from hip & lower back pain. [part 1 of: 1 cup (dry) rice, 3 large tomatoes, 1 onion, 1/2 bunch spinach, garlic, 1 pickle, MHS, ACV, spices] 19:33 Videos in bed. Fatigue. [4 small pears] 21:41. Videos in bed. [part 2/rest of rice & tomatoes (a lot of food), imodium, b vitamins, citracal with D3] 00:50. Videos in bed. Bit of gas here and there throughout the day.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

156lbs

Back still sore. Woke around 13:30. Reddit, videos for a while, not hungry, back ok. [5 small pears, imodium] 16:03. Fatigue in bed. gas. BM, dark brown, firm/formed, loose/parts, smells like donor's, a bit sticky 16:24. Feeling a bit sick after BM. [4 small pears] 18:35. Out, fatigue, light lower back pain, brain function still really low. [part 1: 1 cup (dry) rice, 1 onion, veg, 3 large tomatoes, ACV, MHS, spices, garlic, 1 cup raisins] 21:37 Videos in bed. Fatigue increasing. Chest getting heavy. [1 pickle, 2 bananas, imodium, phages] 00:45. Fatigue in bed. Still gas. [part 2/rest of rice, veg, tomatoes, + b vitamins, citracal with D3] 02:51. Fatigue in bed. Can't sleep 05:55.

---

Second try with donors 6 & 2:

10/20/2017 - 11/21/2017

Donor 2's stool has changed dramatically. It's now dark & uniform, soft/formed. Did oral and enema. No effect.

Prior to FMTs:

Took a bunch of antimicrobials, still doing pretty poorly.

Diet: Fruit, imodium, bimuno, phages, creatine, white rice, some vegetables, ACV, tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, culturelle.

10 days of Flagyl that stopped on 10/17/2017. That same day I was doing terribly, likely due to something bad I ate in the past 2 days. Sciatic pain, red dots coming back, fatigue/head in bed. Feeling sick and quite terrible overall. Scared.

10/18/2017: Doing a little better in the morning. Leaving for FMT. A few handfuls of grapes throughout the day/trip. Head hurting/burning.

Highlights:

Foods & prebiotics that harmed me prior to FMT also harmed me during and after. I tried various kinds and none of them seemed to boost the effects or be beneficial in any way. It seemed that the FMT did decrease detrimental symptoms usually experience from certain probiotics though. The multiple antimicrobials I took did not seem to kill off what I picked up from Donor 5, and thus I still react very poorly to the new food intolerances I picked up from him.

Tried frozen and then fresh, but didn't feel like I could make a proper comparison because the donor wasn't that effective either way, and there were many confounding factors. Also tried keeping it on ice and taking small amounts throughout the day. Again didn't notice a difference.

Oral FMT on empty stomach (first thing in morning with water, hours before food) seemed superior to taking it with/right before food. Donor 6's stool seemed protective against the brain inflammation, and temporarily returned me closer to the mental state prior to Donor 5 FMT, where I had low function but no inflammation.

Things that I figured out later were likely harming me: Curry powder, garlic, mushrooms, bananas, dates, cocoa, maple syrup, clove capsules, smilax, spinach. All things which feed bacteria and/or cause specific shifts in the gut microbiome balance. And both harms from these and benefits from flagyl primarily come once they reach the colon. Nuts bulk my stool and generally harm me. I noticed that nuts also bulk Donor 6's stool, and undigested nuts in his stool harm me.

Irregular use of Flagyl was due to not being able to get a prescription for enough of it, and knowing it was the only thing saving my life at this point, so I was extremely worried about running out.

10/25/2017: When my dreams come back they’re of me trying to get poop-related help from athletes. This time it was me running to get my flyers to give to Kobe, he’s saying no, I’m crying and desperately pleading and at the last second he changes his mind and looks at it.

10/31/2017 - Getting mild to moderate improvements. Stopping 2nd dose of imodium since BMs are painfully compact.

11/4/2017 - Stopping Tried to stop imodium but head got extremely bad so went back to 2 instead.

11/6/2017: Was seeing improvements - BMs got small and compact, but the things I tried to do to boost the effects (probiotics & prebiotics), and then stopping imodium because of painfully compact BMs made everything much worse, and red dots came back on right arm, and got sewer smelling gas. So feeling quite ill today. Donor 6 had to take me to ER. Feeling extremely ill. Cold. Crying. No brain function. Light sensitive (wearing eye mask). Feeling close to stroke or worse. Feels like toxic shock/sepsis. Thought for sure I was going to die as I was lying on the bed in ER.

In hindsight, and from further experimentation, it seems that spinach may have been the primary culprit.

11/09/2017: 2nd ER. Head/infarction got really bad for really long. Cold. Breathing irregular. Feeling “waves” of something hard to describe, like bad flushes with blood pressure & burning. Confusion. Fighting hard to fight off a stroke.

Multiple ER visits and now Donor 6’s stool doesn’t seem to be doing much. Donor 6 seems to have an issue where stress causes a breakdown of his gut microbiome/immune system/intestinal permeability, and this drastically and detrimentally impacts his stools.

IV flagyl at ER seemed to stop BMs for a week but without health improvements. Oral flagyl very helpful.

Looks like sinus blockage started after ER period, and is still not allowing me to lie flat at night as of 6/12/2018.

11/14/2017: Trying flagyl enema because getting worse and it seemed that flagyl is only effective once it makes it through the whole colon, but via enema had no benefits. Also starting oral flagyl 1x/day.

11/17/2017 - 11/20/2017: Donor 2 FMTs.

11/18/2017: Diarrhea, not sure why.

11/20/2017: +iodized salt under tongue (since I have symptoms of iodine deficiency. Don't think I was fully aware of the antimicrobial aspects of iodine till a bit later). Seemed more powerful than flagyl, but only this once.

-

Post FMT:

11/21/2017: Back home. Trying a bunch of stuff: b.coagulans produra, d3, DE (diatomaceous earth), zinc, phages, Fioricet, Zofran, stevia, maple syrup.

11/23/2017: increasing imodium to 3x/day.

Banner GI docs still totally incompetent and left me to die again with nothing. Desperately trying to get more Flagyl through any means possible since it seems to be the only thing keeping me alive. Preparing for death.

11/25/2017: Beginning juice fast.

11/26/2017: Trying to stop flagyl since juice fasting.

11/28/2017: +Lugol's iodine. Broad-spectrum antimicrobial: https://drsircus.com/iodine/iodine-replaces-vaccines-antibiotics/ - https://drsircus.com/iodine/iodine-supplements-and-dosages/

Unsure about effects.

11/30/2017: Starting to recover, probably from juice fast. Ups and downs, but trending up. Gas smells good like after donor 3. And got a wet fart, just like after the first Donor 3 FMT.

12/2/2017: Still diarrhea + large firm BMs despite juice fasting for the past week. Maybe diarrhea due to beets. Juice fasting definitely improving symptoms though, despite diarrhea.

Mutaflor e.coli bad. Softens stools and makes me worse.

Just Thrive - Seemed helpful at first, maybe due to countering effects from Mutaflor. Seemed like within a few hours it was signaling all the way to the rectum. Feeling better as well, but hands still cold. Obviously helpful again the next day. Later on couldn't tell the difference with or without. Only noticed the rectal puckering/signaling when restarting it.

12/6/2017: Unique BO is getting stronger, probably from soft Mutaflor BM. Soft BMs seem to be a trigger for one of the donors as well to break out in the odor.

Various experimentation with diet, probiotics, supplements, antimicrobials, and flagyl.

12/10/2017: Starting to have some breathing trouble where my tongue gets sucked up in the back of my throat and blocks the airway passage. Have to tilt head back and relax lower jaw. Have warmed up, but still in bed eyes covered not listening/watching anything whole day. Was going to take one more flagyl, but since feeling shitty with peripheral neuropathy (side effect from flagyl? Juice fasting used to have massive benefits - going back to the first time I tried a decade ago, now on 6/21/2018 it's causing peripheral neuropathy...) during sleep, I'm stopping now.

12/12/2017: STILL soft BM after stopping flagyl. No idea what the cause is. - in hindsight, probably a mix of amino acid supplements and stuff that feeds bacteria: beans, oats, curry powder, L-glutamine, bioflavonoid supplements I tried for improving intestinal permeability. Maybe turnip juice.

12/27/2017: Can't remember anything. Was losing all ability to function and care for myself. Forgot how powerful juice fasting was. Seems that plus increasing imodium has worked wonders. From in bed all day in agony, eyes covered, doing nothing, back to playing games at PC.

1/1/2018: Adding Jarrow's s.boulardii. Getting all around improvements. Phages & juice fasting very helpful as well.

Trying more stuff and still trying to figure out what foods & spices I can and can't tolerate. Donor 5 seemed to greatly increase the amount of foods that cause problems. Seems like anything that feeds (or even impacts - like turnip - which is supposed to be antibacterial) bacteria fucks me up. Bananas, garlic, white potatoes, maple syrup, etc.. Figured out later that spinach (iron?) and coconut oil are also causing major problems.

Bile acid sequestrants (Cholestyramine) allowed me to add fat back into my diet. But protein (nitrogen) seems to feed bacteria too much. Been trying to get this for many years since it was obvious that it was protein/fat causing problems. But doctors......

3/3/2018: Eyes still swelling/drooping if I sleep in bed (flat). Seems to be related to the breathing/circulation thing where I had to lean my head back.

Full logs:

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Forgot to take 2nd imodium last night so light heart pounding in the morning. Also forgot to bring culturelle in the case that there was no poop. Brain function is so low that it’s costing me bad. [imodium] 10:45. [few handfuls grapes] 12:18. Resting. [small bunch of grapes] 15:03. Feeling better. Resting on and off. [medium bunch grapes] 17:49. Changing tire. [small bunch grapes, imodium] 19:45. Resting. [bit of rice, 1 tomato] 21:15. Resting. [small bunch grapes, 2 tomatoes] 22:33. Rest/sleep.

Friday, October 20, 2017

[small bunch grapes, imodium] 06:00. Sleeping. 10:30. Shops for car fix. Fatigue, head fucked, having speech problems. [small bunch of grapes] 13:45. Resting. Head worse because car overexertion. Maybe moldy rice contributed. [2 tomatoes] 15:30. [1oz poop frozen from yesterday, 2 old & smelly rinsed mushrooms, 1 unripe banana] 19:17. Donor stool was type 3/4, dark brown, ~5oz. [1 tomato, 1 unripe banana, few grapes] 19:47. Breathing rate increase, light heart pounding, minor stomach gurgling, minor head improvements. [2oz poop, 2 unripe bananas, 2 smelly mushrooms, 1 tomato, imodium] 22:22. Resting. Brain hurting/burning a bit. 22:40. Light heart pounding, eyes burning, chest heavy. 01:15. [1oz poop, body didn’t seem to want more so didn’t force it. Poop fully defrosted to formed. 2 unripe bananas, 2 old stinky mushrooms, medium bunch grapes] 02:00.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Dreams, boner, sex drive. 12:30. Fatigue & light lower back pain. [imodium, large bunch grapes] 14:53. Resting. Head hurting/burning a bit. Using poop that was frozen from the day before again. ~2oz dark brown, type 3. [3 bananas, 2 old mushrooms, 1oz poop] 18:00. Resting. Breathing rate increase. Light heart pounding. [2 tomatoes] 19:16. Resting. Feeling good and energetic 20:00. [1oz poop, 3 bananas, 2 old mushrooms, few handfuls grapes] 20:57. Resting. Breathing & heart rate increase 22:37. Head feeling fucked for a short bit 22:55. [imodium, medium bunch grapes] 23:12. Resting. Brain hurting/burning/throbbing. Can’t sleep because too cold tonight & last night. I think I food poisoned myself again with the moldy rice & stinky mushrooms. Thus causing soft BM & related symptoms. 05:00. [4 bananas] 05:40. BM, very compact & dark, then formed & light brown, bit of soft at end 06:00. Walking in store, freezing. 07:00. Sleep till 10:47.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

[imodium, med bunch grapes] 11:47. Resting. Light heart pounding. Stomach queasy. Light & temporary brain fuckery. [couple handfuls grapes] 15:30. Chilling in store for a bit. [2.5 tomatoes] 17:30. Resting. Feeling better but still a bit cold. [1oz type 3 frozen from yesterday dark poop, 3 bananas, 2 old mushrooms] 20:40. Fatigue. Got pretty strong with some head fuckery & chest heaviness. Mushrooms likely cause; will cook rest now that I’m able. [4 old cooked mushrooms, 3 bananas, 4oz poop, imodium] 00:10. Fatigue, but mostly ok. BM, formed, brown, undigested, smelly 02:54.

Monday, October 23, 2017

10:46. Still some lower back pain & sciatic pain & numbness. Feeling ok, on PC in bed. [1oz frozen nuggets, imodium, 1 banana, large bunch grapes] 14:15. Donor stool is type 2 & dark. Cold, light head trouble, fatigue in bed. [2 handfuls grapes] 16:15. [2 poop nuggets, 2 bites rice] 16:22. Fatigue, head a bit fucked, still having to rest with eyes covered. [Part 1: 2 cups (dry) rice; 1 tomato, 1oz frozen poop nuggets, 1 clove capsule, curry powder & oregano, red wine vinegar] 19:00. Fatigue in bed with eyes covered. Head a bit fucked. [part 2: rice; 1 tomato, imodium, 1oz defrosted poop nuggets, curry powder & oregano, red wine vinegar] 23:59. BM, compact, light brown, undigested 00:18. Fatigue but on computer in bed. [1 bunch grapes] 02:40. Fatigue in bed.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

12:26. Light dreams, light boner. Right eye droopy. Ok, on PC. [imodium. 1oz dark brown nuggets, type 2, frozen from yesterday. Part 3/rest of: rice. Few handfuls grapes] 15:30. Fatigue & head hurting a bit. Shower. PC in bed. [few nuggets of previously frozen, dark brown poop. Part 1: 2 cups (dry) rice. 1 tomato. Balsamic vinegar, curry powder, oregano] 18:06. Still feeling ok. Look shitty but expect it to be gone tomorrow. Previous donor stools have been small, but the one pretty fresh in there right now is much larger (about 1lb instead of 2-5oz). Will do enemas with it. Enema with about 6oz of the firm type 3/4 brown stool, partially frozen, with undigested bits of nuts. About 5 or so turkey basters worth 19:00. Lying in position for flow. Light heart pounding. [large bunch of grapes, and a few small ones] 21:50. Videos in bed, feeling fine. [last of the dark poop nuggets, ~1oz] 22:14. Fatigue in bed with eyes covered, breathing rate increase. Went away after a bit. Right eye droopy but feeling ok. [~2oz frozen brown poop nuggets. Part 2: rice. 1 tomato, curry powder & oregano, balsamic vinegar, imodium] 00:50. Videos in bed. Head hurting a bit, eyes covered. Head getting pretty bad 02:50. Not really sure why. Can’t sleep 06:53.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Woke 14:10. Boner on and off, dreams. Eye still droopy. [imodium. Few handfuls grapes. Part 3/last of: rice] 15:05. BM, dark brown, speckled, firm. Looked similar to what I put in there yesterday. Feeling sick. 15:14. Nausea went away shortly. PC in bed, fatigue. Out for food. Had to rest and cover eyes for a bit. Lower back pain. [4 small apples] 20:15. Fatigue in bed. Microbiomedigest. Eye has improved, light headache come and go. [part 1: 2 cups (dry) rice. 2 roma tomatoes, curry powder & oregano, red wine vinegar, garlic, imodium] 23:25. Enema with rest (6-8oz, about 5-6 turkey basters) of large brown stool speckled with nuts. 23:58. [5 bananas] 04:15.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Woke 13:23. Dreams & boner, maybe night sweats, eye is down a bit again. Reddit. BM, large, firm/compact, brown, uniform 13:53. Donor stool is now unfrozen. Stool is large (12+ oz), type 3 with nuggets, dark/dark brown. [~3-4oz poop nuggets, 2 bananas, 2 small apples, 1 white & 1 brown mushroom, imodium] 15:00. Fatigue in bed on PC; microbiomedigest & reddit. Feeling good & exercising a bit!! 18:06. Redness & dryness under eyes had gone for a bit a day or so ago, but currently there. [~3-4oz poop nuggets, 2 bananas, 2 small apples, 1 white & 1 brown mushroom] 18:40. PC in bed, a bit cold. Fatigue. Had to rest for a bit, light temporary head trouble. Feel another BM coming. Some mental irritation. [~1-2oz poop, 1 mushroom, Part 2/rest of: rice. garlic, vinegar, curry powder & oregano] 21:10. 2nd BM, large, compact, dark brown. (unsure of the cause of the double BM) 21:25. Light lower back/hip pain. [1 heaping tbls cocoa, 3tbls maple syrup] 21:45. Fatigue in bed. Enema with 3-4oz poop, ~3 basters worth 22:50. Worried it’s not making it all the way through because no matter what position I put myself in it still feels like it’s in the rectum. [~3oz poop, 3 bananas, 1 brown mushroom, imodium] 00:23. Videos in bed. Some minor symptoms like increased breathing rate.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Light dreams & boner. 11:45. PC in bed. 3x normal dose of BPC 13:42. [imodium, 4 pears] 14:10. PC in bed. A bit cold. Fatigue. [3 bananas, 1 pear] 17:00. Videos in bed. BM, compact, dark brown then pale brown 18:00. Some light mental irritation. Low brain function. [1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, red wine vinegar, curry powder & oregano, garlic] 19:50. Videos in bed. Fatigue, a bit cold. [1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, red wine vinegar, curry powder & oregano & black pepper, garlic, imodium] 22:30. Microbiome alerts & videos in bed. Fatigue. Some temporary head trouble, had to rest with eyes covered for a bit 23:30.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Light dreams & boner. Light sex drive but body still low function. 14:10. [imodium, 5 bananas] 14:30. PC in bed. Light head trouble. Fatigue. [1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, garlic, oregano & curry powder, red wine vinegar] 18:00. Videos in bed. Have to rest with eyes covered for a bit. [4 bananas] 21:15. A bit cold, videos in bed, fatigue, light head inflammation, under eyes still red & dry. BM, very compact with a few nuggets, brown 23:40. [Part 1: 1 cup (dry) rice. 1 tomato, few tbls blackstrap molasses, curry powder & oregano, imodium] 02:25. Videos in bed, fatigue, a bit cold.

Sunday, October 29, 2017 - Health & stool improvements today. Adding PBs to try and boost FMT.

Dreams & boner 13:45. Was expecting to feel a lot better today, but my eye is droopy, red under eyes, and it feels like another BM is OTW, and lots of light gas. [2x myarisan, 5x PB/phage mix, 5x kyodophilus, 4x reuteri pearls] 14:25. BM, brown speckled with nuts from donor I guess, compact with nuggets, then got smaller/thinner towards the end which I see as a good thing 14:32. Donor stool is dark, type 3 with nuggets, speckled with nuts, about 10-12oz, a bit stinky & green this time. [imodium, 1-2oz poop, 2 bananas, rest of rice & molasses] 15:30. PC in bed, brain function better. Fatigue. Skin feeling good. Feeling stronger. [3 pears, 1 brown & 1 white mushroom, ~2oz poop] 17:50. Fatigue in bed. [~2oz poop, 1 brown & 1 white mushroom, 1 cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, red wine vinegar, curry powder & oregano, garlic] 20:35. Enema with ~6oz poop, 5-6 basters worth. 21:00. Again not completely sure how far it’s making it through. 3x dose BPC 23:15. BPC seems to have made head symptoms worse so will wait another week before trying again. Eye droopy along with the light head inflammation. Been having some upper back pain, I think from the position I’ve been lying in. [~2oz poop, imodium, 1 white & 1 brown mushroom. Most of: 1 cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, heaping tbls cocoa, many tbls molasses, 1 clove capsule] 00:35. Videos in bed. Warmed up a lot, can’t sleep 03:30. [rest of rice, cocoa, & molasses, 1 pear] 04:04. Videos in bed. Eye still droopy but I’m feeling ok.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Light dreams, on & off boner. 13:50. Eye still droopy. PC in bed. BM, brown, compact with lots of nuggets 14:35. No sign of probiotics in stool. [10x myarisan, 5x PB/phage mix, 10x kyodophilus, 4x reuteri pearls] 14:44. [3 pears, imodium] 14:55. PC in bed. Fatigue & light head trouble, resting for a bit. Head pain increasing, resting with eyes covered. 16:50. [3 pears] 17:05. Videos in bed. Mostly resting with eyes covered. Donor stool today is ~2oz dark nuggets. [1 poop nugget, 1 brown & 1 white mushroom. Part 1: 2 cups (dry) rice. 2 tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, curry powder & oregano & black pepper, garlic] 20:20. Enema with ~1oz poop nuggets, about 3 basters worth. 20:43. Head started to burn after a while (maybe when it made it to the end of the colon). Went away though. [last few nuggets of poop, 1oz or less. 1 dark & 1 white mushroom. Part 2: rice. Two tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, curry powder & oregano & black pepper, garlic, imodium, 1 clove capsule, 1 heaping tbls cocoa, few tbls molasses] 00:44. Videos in bed.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - stopping 2nd dose of imodium since BMs are painfully compact

16:05. Dreams, on and off boner, sex drive & light heart pounding. [imodium, 3 pears, handful grapes] 17:00. Feeling quite good/normal. PC in bed. Shower & shave. [few handfuls grapes] 19:20. Videos in bed. Had to rest for a bit. [Part 3/rest of rice. Part 1: 1 cup (dry) rice. 2 tomatoes, 1 brown & 1 white mushroom, balsamic vinegar, curry powder & oregano & black pepper, garlic] 21:25. Videos in bed. Fatigue. BM, compact, brown, with nuggets 22:40. Slightly cold. Resting with eyes covered, and getting colder 00:05. Got really sleepy for a while. Some mental irritation & sciatic numbness. [3 pears] 01:10. Resting. Bit of lower back pain.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

13:20. Dreams & boner, peeing a lot. Donor stool today is about 8oz, dark brown, type 4. [~2oz poop, imodium, 1 white & 1 dark mushroom, 1/2tbls oligo30, few handfuls grapes] 14:18. A bit cold, PC in bed. Fatigue. Reddit & microbiomedigest. Some stomach gurggling/bubbling & gas 17:29. BM**, dark brown, compact with nuggets, still pretty large** 17:42. [~2oz poop, 1 dark & 1 white mushroom, oligo30. Part 2/most of 1 cup (dry) rice. 2 tomatoes, garlic, balsamic vinegar, curry powder & oregano & black pepper] 18:19. A bit cold. Fatigue, in bed. Noticing sewer smell. Enema with ~4oz poop, almost 3 basters worth. 19:50. Videos in bed, slight head inflammation when it makes it all the way through the colon. [~2oz poop, 1 bunch grapes, 1tbls cocoa, 1/2tbls oligo30, 1 clove capsule, few tbls molasses] 21:50. Videos in bed. Fatigue. Had to rest with eyes covered for a bit. Light heart pounding & head inflamed with eyes covered on and off still 03:19. [~1oz poop nuggets, 3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, 2 brown mushrooms, garlic, 1 clove capsule, balsamic vinegar, curry, oregano, black pepper, onions, 1tbls cocoa, 1/2tbls oligo30, few tbls molasses] 04:00. A bit cold, fatigue in bed.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

13:45. Light dreams & boner. Reddit. Some light hip pain. Chest/back a bit sore. Eyes still red. [small-med bunch grapes, imodium] 15:50. A bit cold, fatigue. BM, compact with nuggets, dark brown, still pretty large 16:05. Feeling a bit sick & fatigued, have to lie down for a bit. Fatigue getting strong, and getting quite cold. Guess the lack of imodium + prebiotics is too much. 17:30. Having a variety of detrimental symptoms, pretty much the same as when I tried oligo30 previously. Heart pounding, breathing & pressure irregularities, feeling ill. 19:30. Could not go out for food. [1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, variety spices, balsamic vinegar, garlic] 20:30. Feeling better & warmed up. Fatigue in bed. Microbiomedigest 22:00. Resting with eyes covered, light heart pounding 22:30. [few tbls honey] 00:45. Videos in bed, still a bit cold. Fatigue in bed with eyes covered & light heart pounding. [3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, variety spices, garlic, balsamic vinegar] 03:53. Trying to sleep.

Friday, November 3, 2017

12:25. Dreams & boner. [imodium] 12:30. Out for food. [6 large dates, 2tbls raisins] 15:10. Reddit, videos, fatigue in bed. Donor poop today is about 2oz of dark nuggets. [1 poop nugget, 2 brown mushrooms, small bunch grapes] 18:00. Fatigue, videos in bed. Microbiomedigest. Light head trouble but not enough to make me rest. [1 poop nugget, 1 brown & 1 white mushroom, 3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, a bit of spinach, variety spices, red wine vinegar, garlic, 1 clove capsule] 20:12. BM, very large & hard to pass, dark brown, nuggets at front, formed at rear 20:24. Videos in bed. [few tbls raisins] 20:55. Fatigue in bed with eyes covered because head burning/hurting. Bit of light gas. 21:27. [3 small bananas] 21:32. Enema with last 1oz poop, about 2 basters worth. 21:55. In position then watching videos. Head/eyes temporarily burning when enema made it to end of colon. 23:39. Feeling better & energetic 01:30. [1 poop nugget, 1 brown & 1 white mushroom, 3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, garlic, variety spices & vinegar] 01:57. Videos in bed. Still some head trouble off and on. [3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, variety spices & vinegar, garlic] 05:00. Fatigue in bed.

Saturday, November 4, 2017 - Stopping Increasing imodium back to 2 - horrible day, probably from spinach

13:45. Light dreams & boner. Eye a bit droopy. Donor stool today is large (maybe 1lb), dark brown, and formed with some darker nuggets at front. Reddit. Head hurting/burning a bit. 14:35. [3 small bananas, 2 bananas, 2 small white mushrooms, ~2oz poop] 15:24. Resting because of head. A bit cold. Got very cold, head hurting & burning, eyes covered, also feeling sick/ill. 16:34. BM, dark brown, compact with nuggets 18:10. [~1oz poop, 1 white mushroom, 2 bananas, small bunch grapes] 18:50. Fatigue/head, in bed. Feeling sick. 19:15. Head is killing me. Going to take imodium because of head. [imodium] 20:05. Enema with 10-12oz poop. Was too thick and clogged the baster. Still got multiple basters worth. 21:30. [2 poop nuggets, 1oz or less with water] 23:40. Head still killing me; like jump in front of a bus to stop it bad. Got very cold again. Head improving after an hour or so after the nugget. Fell asleep. [1 poop nugget, 1 mushroom] 01:45. Feeling a little tingly & dizzy. Sleeping. [imodium] 03:00.

Sunday, November 5, 2017 - thinking oral FMT is more effective on empty stomach

11:40. Dreams & boner. Still a little cold & sick. Some lower back pain since last night. Donor stool today is dark brown, type 3 with nuggets, about 5-6oz. [1 poop nugget, imodium] 11:53. Reddit, microbiomedigest, in bed. [1 poop nugget, 3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 1 white mushroom, 1 tomato, a bit of spinach, variety spices & vinegar, garlic] 13:50. Fatigue/head, in bed. Cold, eyes covered for a bit. [2 bananas, 5 large grapes] 15:10. Videos in bed. A second donor stool today about the same as the previous one. 17:06. [1-2oz poop nuggets] 18:10. Resting with eyes covered, a bit cold. Better around 18:55. [1 poop nugget, 4 bananas, 1 white mushroom, small bunch grapes, 1 tomato, few tbls raisins] 20:10. Videos in bed. Feeling better (before BM). BM, compact, brown, bit of formed at end 20:40. Noticing the red dots again all over my right arm, no doubt from the horrible day yesterday. [1oz poop nugget, 3/4ths cup (dry) rice, a bit of spinach, 1 white mushroom, 1 tomato, garlic, variety spices & vinegar, few tbls raisins] 23:15. Enema with ~6oz poop, about 4 basters worth 00:15. Still feeling good. Lots of gas, a bit painful. Light head trouble from enema liquid making it to end of colon. [1/2 poop nugget, imodium, lots of water] 02:29. Head/eyes hurting/burning for a bit 03:57. [1 poop nugget with 1 white mushroom; 15 minutes later: 3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, variety spices & vinegar, garlic, maybe 1/2 cup raisins] 05:21. Videos in bed. Still gassy; has some light gas.

Monday, November 6, 2017 - ER

15:15. Sex dreams & boner. Eye a bit droopy. [imodium, 1/2 (large metal bowl) grapes] 15:40. Reddit in bed. A bit cold. BM, compact/formed, large, brown 16:00. Feeling sick. Resting, cold. Think I fucked up by forcing the grapes meal because I didn’t want my sleep rotating. Feeling quite shitty, even after drinking lots of water. 19:40. Have to go buy culturelle because it seems like it’s getting worse; getting scared. 21:13. [culturelle, handful small brown mushrooms] 22:08. Sick in bed. Kept getting worse, Donor 6 brought me to ER. Feeling extremely ill. Sewer smell. Cold. Crying. No brain function. Light sensitive (wearing eye mask). Feeling close to stroke or worse. Feels like toxic shock/sepsis. Thought I would die. They gave me IV electrolytes, they said they gave IV flagyl, but not sure. They said they gave me oral flagyl near the end, but not sure. Got prescription for flagyl. [imodium] 09:06.

Possible causes (written at the time):

* using oil as rectal lube - the bag is oily at the end so likely oil got throughout the colon.

* Lemon pepper seasoning - possibly they add lemon peel oil and/or oil is part of “natural flavoring”

* First SS seemed to be from taking all the disruptor probiotics. Maybe that plus the oligo30 plus stopping imodium just compounded.

Taking the poop nuggets on an empty stomach seemed to clear up my head, so I’m doubting it’s that. They might have even been the reason I didn’t feel a lot of pain & head inflammation (and even redness & dryness under eyes seemed minor), just extremely low function & close to something like stroke. I think Donor 6’s poop was protective against the inflammation, and returned me closer to the mental state prior to the Donor 5 FMT, where I did have low function but no inflammation.

Don’t think it was spinach, but maybe even food poisoning from spinach? But I cooked it.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Boner. [imodium]. 14:18. Doing better, but still pretty fatigued & a bit light sensitive, head hurting a bit, red & dry under eyes, a bit cold. Medical stuff in bed. Resting in bed, eyes covered, head hurting/burning a bit. 16:35. [flagyl 250mg, 1/2 metal bowl grapes, 1 banana, few tbls raisins] 16:54. Fatigue, a bit cold. PC in bed. Resting, eyes covered, head hurting/burning a bit 18:30. [1 banana, handful grapes, 2tbls raisins] 19:37. Resting with eyes covered, head hurting/burning a bit. A bit cold. BM, dark brown, pretty large, compact then formed, a little loose/undigested, speckled black 20:12. Got bad after BM, head, cold, ill, was thinking “god damn it, not again”. Definitely feels like an infection my body can’t fight off. Worsened - “please stop, please stop”. Then changed to feeling like I was fighting off a viral infection/fever. Body wanted me to sit up. Drowned myself in many thick blankets. Started improving once flagyl made it to the colon intersection with small intestine; gut started making noises; brain function still low. [1 brown & 1 white mushroom, culturelle] 00:13. [imodium] 04:00. Light heart pounding & cold sweat. Right knee hurting.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Dreams. 12:11. [imodium, culturelle, 1 white and 1 brown mushroom] 12:50. Fatigue in bed, eyes covered, low brain function, asking help on facebook. [1/2 of: 2/3rds cup (dry) rice, some spinach, curry powder & italian spices] 16:23. Out to pharmacy. Very low brain function, dazed, fatigue. Resting in bed with eyes covered, some colon pain on left close to rectum, probably from flagyl making it there. [rest of rice & spinach. 1 tomato] 18:40. Fatigue/head, in bed with eyes covered. Some light gas with the colon pain. [3 bananas] 21:35. Fatigue/head, in bed with eyes covered. Starting to feel better around 22:40 - able to modify medical summary. Warming up. 23:44. [1 banana, 1/2 - 1 cup raisins, imodium] 23:59. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Further improvements around 02:00. Talking with Donor then listening to videos in bed. [2/3rds cup (dry) rice, 1/2 bunch spinach, 2 smallish tomatoes, curry powder & oregano & black pepper & red wine vinegar, garlic] 03:14. Microbiomedigest in bed. [1 tomato] 04:10. PC in bed. Light head inflammation from not wanting to rest. [few handfuls grapes, 1/2 cup or more raisins] 09:53. PC in bed. Resting after a while 11:34. [imodium]. 11:35. Still getting gas and feeling good. Sleep.

Thursday, November 9, 2017 - ER

Gas having hard time making it through and woke me up with stomach feeling nauseous? 17:16. Donor stool today is brown/dark brown, type 1-3, a bit smelly, 5-6oz. Donor 6 said he got stomach upset from stress so not using the stool today to give him some more time to recover. [1 small brown mushroom, culturelle] 17:40. Feeling ok, reddit in bed. Some light head burning problems. 18:49. Have to rest with eyes covered. 18:55. Seems I’m getting worse (head & feeling ill). [few handfuls grapes] 19:23. Fatigue/head in bed with eyes covered, cold. Seems to be passing 19:47. Thinking it’s due to the inulin in Culturelle, and/or mushrooms. [flagyl 250mg, few handfuls grapes] 20:50. Fatigue/head, sick, in bed eyes covered. Resting under heavy blankets. Doing better, warming up 21:56. [3/4ths cup (dry) rice, 1/2 bunch spinach, 2 smallish tomatoes, curry powder & italian & red wine vinegar, garlic] 23:15. Fatigue/head, resting for a bit with eyes covered. Head/infarction got really bad for really long. Cold. Breathing irregular. Feeling “waves” of something hard to describe, like bad flushes with blood pressure & burning. Confusion. Fighting hard to fight off a stroke. 02:05. Called ambulance. They gave me something via IV that seemed to help head, but then feeling really sick even after IV zofran. [imodium] 09:30.

Friday, November 10, 2017

13:50. Some sweats, still not feeling/looking good. Will continue to fast till poop. Cold, sick, fatigue, in bed, bundled up with heavy blankets. 15:24. Warming up and feeling better 16:00. Donor stool today is 4-5oz brown nuggets. [1 small poop nugget, 0.5oz maybe, 1 liter water] 17:00. Still resting to be safe. [1 small poop nugget, 1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1/4th bunch spinach, 1 tomato, garlic, italian & curry powder & red wine vinegar] ~18:00. Talking with Donor for an hour or more, feeling ok, then fatigue in bed with eyes covered. [1 medium-ish poop nugget with a liter of water] 20:32. Resting in bed with eyes covered. Head getting a bit worse. 21:18. [1 small-ish poop nugget with 1 liter water] 21:24. Fatigue/head, in bed. Starting to feel the onset of what happened last night (cold & head issues), so going to try enemas with poop and maybe antibiotics. 21:39. Since haven’t had a BM in a few days worried about enema being able to make it through, so doing water enema first to try and clear it out. Got out a handful of nuggets that looked pretty similar to donor’s. Then enema with ~1oz of donor poop nuggets. About 2 basters worth. [imodium, handful grapes, 1 very small poop nugget]. 22:57. Face droopy, neuro weakness, lower back pain. Could feel it go all the way through, and worrying neuro symptoms seem to be dying down 23:34. Now wondering whether the IV flagyl really did have a significant, but delayed effect on my BMs. Got a few light-moderate “stroke” waves, but seems to be transient 23:55. Right eye slightly droopy, and did get some transient light head burning. 00:05. [1 small poop nugget with water] 00:12. Lighter and lighter transient waves. Still some confusion, cold, and general all around low function, but able to be on PC. 00:54. Had to stop and rest, eyes covered 01:25. Brain function still very low, but not close to failure or anything like before. [1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, garlic, black pepper, curry powder, oregano, red wine vinegar, 2 small poop nuggets] 02:29. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Some light versions of what I experienced yesterday - sinus blockage, breathing & “waves” irregularities. 03:30. Propped self up, flush rose to chest, was getting worried, then it subsided. [1small poop nugget with a liter of water] 04:24. Flushing with some kind of immune reaction or something.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Dreams & boner. 12:30. Donor stool today is about 10-12oz of dark brown nuggets. Gonna take it all orally (and with nothing acidic) since abx are likely still in colon. [1 poop nugget less than 1/2oz, imodium, 1 liter water] 12:48. Right eye slightly droopy, still red under eyes. Fatigue/head, in bed, a bit cold, resting with eyes covered. Donor 6’s poop seems to have no effect at all at the moment. Feeling pretty sick & fatigued 15:24. [a few tiny frozen nuggets from yesterday, and about 2oz fresh ones from today, 1 pretty large bunch grapes] 16:08. Fatigue in bed, eyes covered, a bit cold. Feeling a bit better, maybe FMT is starting to kick in now? 17:30. [2-3oz nuggets, 1/2 cup (dry) rice, italian seasoning, black pepper, curry powder] 18:32. Definitely seem to be improving; PC/microbiomedigest in bed. Resting with eyes covered 19:48. Some bubbling & gas. Even though still pretty drowsy, body feels like it’s urging me to exercise, so able to do a little bit of pacing/marching 21:55. Light lower back pain. Videos in bed. [1/2-1oz poop nugget with 1 liter of water] 22:19. Slightly cold from water, videos in bed, eyes covered. Similar to yesterday I just got some light versions of the problems, but again even lighter than the day before. 23:11. [1/2-1oz poop nugget, small bunch grapes] 23:26. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Head got kind of bad for a bit, but now doing better 00:30. Then got bad again 01:54. Not sure if I should eat or not, or if I should take imodium or not. [1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, curry, oregano, red wine vinegar, ~1.5oz poop nugget] 02:05. Fatigue/head/sick, in bed. Bundled up, propped up, eyes covered, but mostly ok. Sleeping, woke up feeling a bit weak, like I needed an imodium, so.. [imodium] 05:21.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Dreams & boner. 13:54. [1/2oz frozen nugget from yesterday, 1 liter water] 14:25. A bit cold, bundled in bed. Still dazed, weak, fatigued, confused. Out for fruit, difficult. 15:47. [4 bananas]. 15:55. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Starting to feel better 17:12. Think food is good right now. BM, very compact & dry, had to dig, mostly nuggets, brown, maybe 8oz 17:34. A bit cold after drinking water 18:19. [3 bananas] 19:06. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. [imodium] 19:30. Feeling some of the head trouble start to come on, so drank a liter of water. Cold after water. Still bundled in bed today. 20:09. Feeling quite shitty, still very low brain function, confusion, etc.. [1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1/4th bunch spinach, 1 tomato, curry powder & oregano] 22:08. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Chest heavy, light heart pounding, think I’m (head) improving, and warming up 22:39. On PC 23:21. [1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1/4th bunch spinach, 1 tomato, curry powder & oregano, garlic] 00:50. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. [4 oranges, 1/2-1 cup raisins] 02:52. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Light lower back pain. Short sleep. [imodium] 04:15. Getting some gas. Microbiomedigest. 05:11. [4 oranges, 1 frozen poop nugget] 07:10. Lots of bubbling & gas, still cold, but getting energetic & happy. BM, pretty large, nuggets then compact then a bit of formed at end 08:03.

Monday, November 13, 2017 - starting to wait on Donor 2. Have to drive, but unable much of the time.

Slept for a bit. Boner. Still quite cold. Pain in mid left arm if I fold it - clotting issues? 13:30. Not feeling great. [imodium] 13:40. Fatigue in bed with eyes covered, feeling another BM coming, light heart pounding. 14:44. Still resting & fasting. Feeling a bit better 16:56. [part 1: 3/4ths cup (dry) rice (just a few bites), curry powder & oregano] 17:54. Fatigue in bed. Head hurting/burning a bit, eyes covered. [part 2: rice & spices] 19:35. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Able to use PC on and off, eyes/head burning/hurting. [part 3/rest of rice, few tbls raisins, imodium] 22:55. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Body in fast & repair mode; lying declined off the bed for a while. 02:37.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Dreams & boner. 11:43. Still cold. Reddit in bed. [imodium] 13:09. Fatigue in bed, eyes covered, light heart pounding. Still not hungry. [4 oranges] 16:27. Fatigue, in bed, eyes covered, some sciatic pain & numbness. Out for food, fatigue, head woozy/full/pain/burn. 18:30. [small bunch grapes] 19:45. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Improved enough to watch videos (on and off - head) 21:13. Some bubbling & gas. [part 1 (1/4th of): 2 cups (dry) rice, 1/2 bunch spinach. 1 tomato, curry powder & oregano] 23:16. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Head getting worse, with the breathing stuff, propped self up. [imodium] 00:56. Going to do flagyl enema because head shitty and cold 02:03. Did water enema first to get out a compact, pale brown, speckled BM, 1/2 nuggets. Then flagyl (500mg) enema - 3-4 basters worth of water. 02:57. Definitely made it through. Doesn’t really seem to be a good treatment. Still having some worrying symptoms at 03:41. Going to force meal for/with oral flagyl. [part 2: rice & spinach, a few spices, flagyl 500mg] 04:25. Fatigue/ill, in bed. Was getting warm off and on I think.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017 +promethazine

Woke around 1:30; boner. Flagyl enema doesn’t seem to be helpful. [imodium] 13:55. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Head getting worse. [500mg flagyl, small bunch of grapes] 16:21. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered, propped up, bundled up. Starting to warm up a bit and improve a bit at 18:20. [2 handfuls grapes] 18:28. In bed, same stuff. A bit of stomach bubbling & gas but still feeling quite shitty. [part 3: rice & spinach] 19:37. In bed, same stuff. Head getting worse. Going to drug store to get fioricet. [fioricet, chewed off top of romaine bunch, small bunch of grapes] 21:39. Not really a noticeable effect from drug. Still in bed, head bad, bundled & covered. [2 handfuls grapes, imodium] 00:36. Still bad in bed. Warming up a bit right before meal. [part 4/rest of: rice & spinach. A few spices, Promethazine] 02:04. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Warmed up more.

Thursday, November 16, 2017 +creatine & salt

Boner. Woke around two or three something but stayed in bed for a while because weak, numb, and tingly all over. [imodium] 16:41. Fatigue in bed. [3 oranges] 17:16. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. [500mg flagyl, 1/2tbls creatine, 2 small bunches grapes] 19:07. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. Getting colder. Some stomach pain or something, maybe slight nausea and head burning. [3 oranges with lots of salt] 20:56. BM, large, compact with a few nuggets, brown, speckled & darker towards the softer end - probably from spinach 21:04. Fatigue/head, in bed eyes covered. [small bunch grapes with salt] 22:47. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. [1/2 cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, curry powder & oregano & italian] 00:27. Fatigue/head, in bed, eyes covered. [a few bites of romaine with salt water] 01:20. Back to bed. Breathing rate increase, sinus congestion. [imodium, promethazine] 02:52. Feeling lightheaded/dizzy. Breathing issue getting worse. It’s the “have to move around” thing again. Sleepy but it’s keeping me awake. Feeling ok other than this stupid breathing thing that feels like it’s moving me towards a stroke. A bit cold and tingly. 04:15.

Friday, November 17, 2017 – Starting Donor 2 FMT

13:27. Boner. [imodium, 500mg flagyl, small bunch grapes] 15:14. Back to bed. [salt with water] 16:32. Traveling to location since Donor 2 just had a BM. Arrived at location 21:26. Stool doesn’t resemble Donor 2’s at all. 6-8oz, type 4, firm at front and softer towards rear, darkish, uniform, a few pieces. [0.5-1oz poop with water] 21:30. Was feeling ok after drive. Probably from oral flagyl kicking in. No reaction to stool at 22:49. [~4oz poop, large bunch grapes, imodium] 23:10. Poop 8/10, did not enjoy. Resting. Breathing rate increase for a long time but without the scary symptoms from before. Feeling good 01:28. [last ~4oz of the softer but still formed end of the stool. 1/2 cup (dry) rice, curry powder & oregano, 1 very small dried mushroom, 1/2 cup raisins] 02:04. Resting. Breathing rate increase again. Cold 04:00.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Boner. Nothing major from stool. 12:56. [imodium] 13:30. Replacing car tire. Lower back pain and some fatigue. [2 small bunches grapes] 17:00. Fatigue, resting, cold. Breathing rate increase. Not feeling well. Poop doesn’t seem to have done anything good still, and meal made me worse. [1/2tbls creatine, salt water, 2tbls raisins] 19:06. Fart that smelled like donor’s stool. Dizzy/light headed. Was feeling worse since meal but now stomach gurgling, BM close, and improving. 19:45. Donor stool seems to be making it through colon. Warmed up a bit. BM, compact with nuggets, diarrhea, dark brown/dark 21:35. A bit cold, hands a bit dry. On phone in store, feeling fine after the diarrhea. [imodium, small bunch grapes] 23:38. Resting, cold in car. Can’t sleep. [few small bunches grapes] 01:52. Still feeling fine/good. Resting. Videos on phone for a bit.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Dreams, boner, light heart pounding, light gas, exhausted, lower back pain. 12:53. [imodium] 13:30. At library on PC. [few small bunches grapes] 15:31. Fatigue, resting. [small bunch grapes, 1/2tbls creatine, 1tbls iodized salt] 17:50. Fatigue, resting. Light donor gas. Donor stool today is dark brown/dark, type 3/4, ~5oz. [1oz poop with water] 20:18. 8.5/10, not bad. A bit cold, but feeling ok/good. Left arm hurting since at least yesterday. [1oz poop, grapes, 2 small dried mushrooms, couple bites romaine] 21:40. Still cold in car, resting. BM, firm then formed then soft close to diarrhea, brown 23:20. Still lower back pain, & knees recently hurting too. Enema with about 3oz poop, 3 basters worth 01:34. [1oz poop, imodium, 1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, variety spices & hot sauce] 01:57. Getting very cold indoors 02:42. [1oz poop, 1 dry mushroom] 05:46.

Monday, November 20, 2017 +iodized salt under tongue

Boner, lower back & knee pain. 12:35. [imodium] 12:45. [Part 1: 1 cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, romaine, salsa & spices] 13:22. Fatigue & lower back pain. 15:21. Goodwill, fatigue & pain increase 17:08. [second half: rice, romaine, tomatoes] 17:19. Warmed up and pain subsiding. Pain back 19:01. Exhausted/fatigued, pain at library 19:45. Fatigue/head, rest in car with eyes covered till 21:14. Stool today is 3-4oz, dark, uniform, barely formed type 4. [0.5-1oz poop, couple dried mushrooms, romaine] 21:58. Bad fatigue, head getting worse with scary symptoms, cold, scared. 22:37. Bundled up inside. [500mg flagyl with lots of water] 23:39. [imodium] 23:48. [iodized salt] 00:02. Iodized salt seemed to help. Held it under tongue. Warming & feeling better 00:25. Continuing to recover 02:19. Iodized salt seems more powerful than flagyl. [few small bunch grapes, iodized salt] 02:29. Continued improvements. [1 banana, few dried mushrooms, 1 tomato with iodized salt] 03:47.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017 +stevia, maple syrup, d3, zinc, phages.

Boner. 11:30. Feeling ok. Going home. [imodium, small bunch grapes, 1 tomato, 2 dried mushrooms, iodized salt] 12:30. Fatigue and lower back pain. Have to stop and rest 19:25. Bits of donor gas throughout day. Fatigue and cold increasing despite iodized salt earlier during drive. [3 bananas, iodized salt, bit of romaine, stevia] 19:36. Fatigue, head, sick, cold, resting. Iodized salt doesn't seem enough so taking flagyl again. [Flagyl] 19:45. Bundled + heater the rest way home. BM at home, brown, stinky, pieces, compact then formed/soft. 23:44. [imodium, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 4k d3, 50mg zinc, maybe phages].

Fatigue, head, cold, in bed after moving stuff in from car. Light heart pounding. Recovered and trying PC stuff to prep for tomorrow. Getting worse so trying [Zofran ODT 4mg] 03:42. Maybe lightly helpful. [iodized salt] 04:47. Still worrying symptoms keeping me awake 05:53. Very scared. Not sure flagyl's even gonna keep working. Holding iodized salt in my mouth seems helpful 07:08. Improved enough to sleep around 9am.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017 +b.coagulans, DE, Fioricet

Boner. Right eye droopy. 13:21. Out to Banner GI doc. Feeling & looking extremely shitty & cold. Very low brain function. Totally incompetent. I wrote down everything in detail and instead of an antibiotic they drug tested me and told me to come back in 3 weeks. Left me to die again with nothing. Flagyl for my symptoms is "not part of standard protocol". [imodium, 500mg flagyl] 16:13. Fatigue, cold, head, in bed. Not improving. [Fioricet, creatine, curry powder, iodized salt, 3 bananas] 17:46. Fatigue, head, cold, in bed. Improving a bit 19:08. [phages, 1tbls DE, b.coagulans produra] 19:13. Back to bed. Improvements stopped, forcing food to try and push flagyl through. [3 bananas] 20:31. Bed. Masturbated for the first time in months (kind of forced) 21:56. Warming up and improving overall 22:58. [3 tomatoes, ACV, curry powder, italian seasoning, garlic, tabasco, iodized salt] 23:36. Doing ok. Got worse. In bed, head, fatigue, eyes covered, warming up but head still bad. 00:57. [2 handfuls raisins, imodium, iodized salt water] 01:22. Fatigue/head, in bed. [promethazine]. 02:26

Thursday, November 23, 2017 - increasing imodium to 3x/day

155lbs

Off and on boner, light dreaming. Low function, but not currently deadly. 18:15. [flagyl, imodium, 2 bananas, 1/2 cup or so raisins, iodized salt] 18:40. Fatigue, head, in bed eyes covered. BM, mixed coloring, light brown & dark brown, some bubbles, mostly compact, some formed at end 21:21. [3 small bananas, 1/2tbls creatine, 2k vit d, iodized salt] 21:37. Fatigue, head, in bed eyes covered. [part 1/most of: 1/3rd cup (dry) rice, 1 tomato, iodized salt, garlic, ACV, mixed curry spices with cinnamon & italian, black pepper, smilax, 2k vit d] 23:02. Back to bed. [1tbls DE] 23:27. Some light gas. Gargled iodized salt water. Feeling peaceful, but then some of the "waves" come and go. 02:19. [rest of rice & tomatoes, 3 small bananas, iodized salt, phages, 50mg zinc, 2k vit d, imodium] 03:44. Back to bed. Still worrying symptoms 04:56. [imodium] 05:24. Feeling another BM close. imodium definitely helping 07:23. [promethazine]. 09:30

Friday, November 24, 2017

160lbs

Maybe on off boner & light dreaming. 16:23. [imodium, 500mg flagyl, 3 bananas, 2k vit d, 1tbls raisins, few tbls honey, iodized salt] 16:39. Able to sit at PC for a bit. BM, brown, formed/soft, loose, sticky, pieces 17:12. Doing ok, rest in bed, eyes covered but better than yesterday. [1/4th cup (dry) rice, 2 tomatoes, ACV, tabasco, iodized salt, curry powder & italian, garlic, 2k vit d] 20:30. Fatigue, head, in bed eyes covered. Dry hands. Some light/gas. [DE, phages, imodium] 21:49. Back to bed. Not feeling well. [1/2tbls creatine, few tbls honey, iodized salt] 22:33. Back to bed, feeling ill, getting ready for ER. Stomach gurgling & some gas. Feeling better around 23:45. [2k vit d, 50mg zinc, 1 tomato, imodium] 02:34. Back to bed.

Saturday, November 25, 2017 - begin juice fast.

---

Donor 8, AR

RDS's AR donor. Someone helped me get the stool after the donor left me to die: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/horrible-experience-with-rds-infusions-clinic-in-florida-2017.70/

Not much is known about the donor besides being a teenage, female dancer, probably black (was basing it off this article).

At this point I have a pretty good understanding of FMT and the characteristics of a high quality donor. I ask the doctor if he's familiar with the stools of each donor and which has the firmest stools. He says AR usually has type 3 and the other donor has type 4, so I choose her.

Diet:

Nothing that feeds bacteria. Cholestyramine allowed me to add fats back into my diet, but I still seem to have problems with anything that feeds bacteria, therefore protein/nitrogen. Eating chicken massively restored my sex drive, but caused most other things to get worse.

Floraphage, Jarrow's s.boulardii, imodium. Watery fruits, white rice, romaine, cheese, curry powder, Cholestyramine, vit d, L-glutamine, brewer's yeast, Quercetin, Myricetin, Hesperetin, Naringin, creatine, 5mg lithium, 50mg zinc, avocados.

Figured out later that curry powder and Quercetin were feeding bacteria and harming me.

Highlights:

Summary: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/rds-ar-partial-cfs-ibs-arthritis-and-more-2018.75/

Oral (1 capsule per day, first thing in the morning with water, hours before meal) and rectal. For the first order/round the donor stool odor was very rich and pleasant.

Restored my bile acid metabolism very easily (thus no need for Cholestyramine) and quickly (after only a few days of FMTs - oral daily for ~1 week, rectal every other day after BM total 4x).

Reversed the cheese/dairy intolerance I developed from previous donor(s).

Strongly suppressed (but not completely killed off) the unique/bad donor BO I picked up previously.

Prior/during/after tried some natural antimicrobials, such as Lugol's iodine, Oil of Oregano, 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide. https://web.archive.org/web/20161203121423/https://www.drdavidwilliams.com/hydrogen-peroxide-curse-or-cure - https://www.purehealthdiscounts.com/h2o2.htm

None seemed particularly helpful. H202 caused diarrhea and seemed to have similar effects to fermented foods. Oil of Oregano seemed to kill off some of the beneficial microbes I got from donor 8 - changed my stool and had to go back on Cholestyramine, and the bad/unique BOs came back.

Did a 2nd round after detriments from Oil of Oregano, but the quality seemed less in many ways, and the result seemed much weaker. Seemed like it caused some food poisoning type symptoms. Maybe the donor ate something contaminated or picked up something transient via poor hygiene/sanitation.

Fasted and induced diarrhea for the 2nd round with h202 & epsom salt. Also did water enema with tap water. Stopped imodium because it seemed like it was contrasting poorly with the diarrhea-inducers and making me feel worse. Continuing to not take imodium during the FMTs may have weakened their effect though.

6/13/2018: Back on Cholestyramine and doing much better than without it, but even without it doing much better than before donor 8 in terms of tolerating fat in my diet. I don't particularly feel like getting a bunch more from donor 8 since it seems like the quality varies, and I'm poor, and doing ok with Cholestyramine, and donor 8 seems to have minimal other effects. So I'd rather look for a new donor.

7/7/2018: Getting some random diarrhea, with or without Cholestyramine. Trying to figure out the cause.

8/4/2018: After taking flagyl, quads/knees got better, but intolerance to cheese came back (temporarily). And still getting sick/diarrhea for unknown reasons.

8/15/2018: Seeing improvements, maybe from reaction to cheese. No need for Cholestyramine.

8/27/2018: Unable to reproduce reaction to cheese. Tried with/without Cholestyramine, and even took flagyl again. Stools are great without Cholestyramine, and with Cholestyramine they are worse. So it certainly looks like my bile acid metabolism has been fixed. Walnuts seemed to have beneficial and long-term impacts on my stool. Knees aren't great, and my brain function is very poor.

Did a 3rd round.

Used a few more 4oz “infusions”. Experimented with lower vs upper route and confirmed that upper route is necessary to completely restore bile acid metabolism.

AR FMT restoring my bile acid metabolism seems to allow me to water fast, when historically water fasting would make me feel horrible, and I could only tolerate juice fasting, which I would benefit greatly from.

Most benefits don’t last longer than a couple months. I definitely need much longer term FMT from this donor, yet it’s hard to source it from them, and it doesn’t seem like their stool is good enough for a complete cure, so I'm still looking for a better donor.

Summary log:

3/14/2018: Starting FMT infusions from RDS AR donor.

3/14/2018: The "infusion" was very diluted/filtered/processed. Likely blended then filtered then diluted. I got some light reactions once it made it through the colon.

Taking some orally the next morning on empty stomach with water & imodium.

3/17/2018: Changed BMs to dark green but I'm starting to feel better anyway. Improvements are mild so far though. It might be getting rid of the unique donor BO. Seemed like it stopped the rotten egg smell from cheese as well.

3/18/2018: Gassy last night, very sleepy today. Another dark green BM, guess that's why I'm sleepy.

3/19/2018: Gas is smelling like a mix of the plant smell from old donor, and new donor smell.

3/20/2018: Still dark green, sewer smelling BMs, larger & softer than usual. Was thinking I might have to take flagyl to get rid of it, but decided to try juice fasting first. Jarrow's s.boulardii seems to be having protective effects, preventing previous ER-type symptoms, allowing me to postpone abx. Then I added unheated jack cheese with b.yeast without the bile acid sequestrant I was taking.

3/21/2018: No diarrhea after stopping bile acid sequestrants and continuing fat. No major trouble from potatoes bulked and increased frequency, and caused head trouble, and I was in part juice fasting. Stool is getting lighter (probably from potatoes), but still greenish.

Issues with cheese/dairy I developed from previous donor(s) are gone.

3/23/2018: Looks like BMs are permanently dark green (maybe not if I juice/fruit fast, not sure) but still compact, so I feel ok. Looks like protein & fat are tolerated now without bile acid sequestrants.

3/24/2018: Old person/urine/bad&unique donor BO smell is gone after shower. Back to my regular smell. - I think it's lightly there but very suppressed.

3/26/2018: Trying Oil of Oregano. Made things worse.

3/30/2018: Stopping Oil of Oregano, doesn't seem to be doing anything beneficial.

4/1/2018: Seems a single tbls of coconut dropped appetite and fatigued me for a few days. Trying 35 Percent Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide.

4/2/2018: All around improvements, including brain function & head issues, but still very sensitive to anything that feeds bacteria. Not exactly sure how much is from AR vs Jarrow's s.boulardii.

4/3/2018: Still low appetite, fatigue, weakness, and some mental irritation. I think this stuff started with the Oil of Oregano. But the hydrogen peroxide seems to have many of the same effects as fermented foods, so stopping hydrogen peroxide.

4/5/2018: Unique BO smell is pretty much gone. I got diarrhea 3x in 1 day (from hydrogen peroxide) and the BO was barely detectable.

4/7/2018: Left/other hand smells like urine after shower. Wondering if it might be due to the Oil of Oregano removing the darkness & green from BM.

4/9/2018: I am warm recently (not sure when that started), but still some light arthritis pains. Fatigue is main issue right now. Brain function's not great, but not really having "head trouble".

----

Round 2:

4/14/2018

Fasting for ~2 days + flushing with h202 & epsom salt. Wasn't able to do this for past donors because of poor health.

Seem to not need imodium for fatigue as long as I have full blown diarrhea. First day smells were good. Got a bit cold. 2nd day started smelling some of the urine smell, then unique/bad donor BO, along with the smell associated with sticky BMs. And getting some light head trouble when yesterday was fine.

Maybe h202-induced diarrhea results in no smell but epsom salt does.

4/15/2018: Oral & rectal FMTs. Still no immune reaction to AR.

Dipping my fingers in the FMT infusion and rubbing them in my nose did not seem to impact my chronic sinus stuffiness at all.

4/16/2018: I stopped imodium during induced-diarrhea-flush, but first BM is very soft at end so looks like I need to get back on it. Symptoms of soft BM/lack of imodium are not severe, like they were pre-FMT. BM is not as dark or green as the first round made them. Got a 2nd BM, full blown diarrhea, light brown. No bad BO from diarrhea.

First BM after restarting imodium is: BM, compact, fairly small, light/pale/light green brown. I'm also not feeling exceptionally better, and the smells are not more improved (compared to after the first FMTs). So doing a diarrhea flush out of the intestines doesn't seem to be more beneficial. The first FMT series from AR seemed better. Stopping imodium was likely detrimental too though.

4/20/2018: Having daily BM, light brown/green, larger & softer than before. Looks like the diarrhea + stopping imodium for the FMT was detrimental. Going to try with BAS (bile acid sequestrant) like the first time.

Lack of dark BMs = urine smell returns. And pretty sure BAS will make BMs more compact (confirmed 4/22/2018). Rotten egg smell from cheese is also returning (went away sometime over the next week or two).

4/22/2018: used 2nd half of FMT infusion. Final FMTs today. Doing well overall.

4/24/2018: seems a small amount I licked off the container this time caused some problems (food poisoning type symptoms). I did also notice that the odor of this 2nd order was different/weaker/not as nice as the 1st order. The results seem to reflect that.

Mostly replaced the unique donor BO & urine/old person smell with wet dog smell via enema with tap water during the prep for donor 8's FMTs. The first donor 8 FMT seemed to hugely reduce the bad BOs, but they came back a bit after the Oil of Oregano. I've seen some black people comment that some white people smell like wet dog. In my case I first induced that wet dog smell many years ago via tap water enema using a shower hose. Now here again I did the same thing because I opt for that smell over the others. I think the hose is key. It's probably caused by the microbes that grow on the inside of the hose.

-

Post FMT:

4/25/2018: Seems the donor BO smell is located on my scrotum now. Also a white "pimple" that can't be popped. Looks like a lot of the redness (that started around 2011 xifaxan) on my scrotum is gone (6/21/2018: comes and goes).

4/25/2018: Was feeling good, then legs started getting weak and shaky. Some of the same issues that started after the Donor 5 FMT started up again. But this time my quadriceps are getting red, very sore, and red dots. - I believe this leg thing to be a pathway change, rather than a new problem. Since the symptoms are same/similar as previous ones (after Donor 5 FMT), and triggered by the same thing (spinach, and possibly coconut oil). (7/7/2018: heard from a number of female CFS patients that they get these symptoms during their period. So it's plausible it could be from donors 1, 5, or 8, or a combination).

4/27/2018: Noticing the red dots, but this time on the back of the other hand (left).

4/30/2018: Problems seem to be caused by spinach/iron making it to the colon.

5/3/2018: Replaced spinach with broccoli, which seemed to improve health symptoms, but stool still soft. Stool smell changed significantly today, from the typical bad smell to a pretty good food-based one. Not sure what's going on - maybe olive oil which I just introduced is having beneficial effect? - yes, seemed to be olive oil which removed bad odor and greatly decreased the size and frequency of my BMs. Strangely, it doesn't improve any health symptoms, and to the contrary increases fatigue/exhaustion.

5/8/2018: Looks like no need for BAS, and olive oil is causing significant improvements. BM skipped 2 days, and very small and compact, but still weak. Face still bad. Knee/quad area still a bit red and sore. And still light urine smell, and light head trouble. But at PC mostly.

5/13/2018: BO/urine smell occasionally comes from crotch area. Later on (prior to 6/21/2018) mostly changed to an occasional "sweaty balls" smell.

6/21/2018: quads/knees still red & sore. Donor 5 said they have this kind of issue, thus almost certainly got it from them.

Stuff from donor 5 still around:

6/1/2018: Eyes/eyelids still red & sore, still light head trouble but head has improved since removing more stuff from diet + Jarrow's s.boulardii + maybe donor 8.

6/6/2018: Balls mostly still red, but sometimes less so.

6/9/2018: Still ups and downs. Still occasional red dots when head hurting/burning. Still fatigued in bed a lot. Still low brain function. Significantly better overall due to Jarrow's s.boulardii, juice fasting, BAS/donor 8.

8/4/2018: The fact that after taking flagyl, quads/knees got better makes it seem like that was contracted from AR. Which makes me wonder if this is why they originally acted so sketchy when I first tried to get stool from them. Perhaps I showed too much knowledge, and asked too many questions that it made them scared.

I've also heard a couple preliminary reports that other people experienced a similar "Seemed like it caused some food poisoning type symptoms" from this AR donor. But just like with me, it seems to only be from some of the batches but not all. https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/rds-ar-warning-more-bad-results-i-would-recommend-people-stop-using-th.76/

8/15/2018: Seeing improvements, maybe from reaction to cheese. No need for Cholestyramine.

12/18/2018: Head & eyes burning returned after taking high dose iodine, even though BMs are firm. So it looks like AR does have protective effects for not only brain inflammation, but knees too. Chest tightness, sinky, & itch came back too. Cold.

---

Round 3:

12/20/2018: 1st FMT, enema with 1/3rd of an infusion. Still adding filtered tap water.

12/23/2018: Feeling some burning in my calves, so looks like it is from this donor. - was only temporary.

12/26/2018: So far after 1 enema-only FMT it seems that bile & FODMAPs still cause problems in the small intestine but not in the large.

12/27/2018: 2nd enema. 1/2 of an infusion, starting to use saline.

12/28/2018: Going to introduce fat (olive oil & walnuts). Pretty sure it's going to fuck me up. Pretty sure I need top down FMT to get the small intestine first. But doing this to verify.

Still quite cold. Fatigue in bed after meals. Skin improved after the first FMT (but then got worse from something in my diet I think), but the 2nd one so far only made me gassy, cold, and right eye swollen/droopy. Brain function/memory still quite poor. Fatigued in bed all day, prior to adding fat.

Since I'm doing poorly, changed my mind and gonna add fat after next BM to see what it looks like.

12/28/2018: Doing well today, significantly better than yesterday. Skin (hands) is not as dry as yesterday, energy and brain function are improved.

Can't tell a major difference between saline vs no saline.

Added olive oil & walnuts. Surprisingly, was completely fine. But the next meal with sticky rice, raisins, peanuts, s.boulardii, and phages made me feel sick, queasy, and fatigued. Got diarrhea shortly after. So it looks like enema/the colon is protective of systemic symptoms (that would normally occur within 15 minutes of the meal, such as heavy fatigue, head hurting/burning, chest heavy/tight), but the small intestine is the main regulator of stool type/frequency, at least in cases of bile acid metabolism.

Will remove fat and start capsules - 2 each morning on empty stomach with water, and 1 at night before bed for 1 week. Triple encapsulated them but it seems too hard to get the frozen bits the right size to fit in the capsule, so only did 4.

12/31/2018: Interestingly, while the oral FMT is making it through the colon I'm getting various sensations in the colon, even though I already put enema FMTs in there and did not really feel these things.

Similar to the experience I had with Flagyl, where enema was ineffective but oral saw the biggest benefits once it made it to the colon.

Unpopable pimple on scrotum is gone. Seemed like redness was gone as well. Eyes still sore/burning.

1/2/2019: 4th day of no BM after having diarrhea from fat and starting FMT capsules.

1/3/2019: Still got soft BM after adding fat. But not full blown diarrhea like last time. And this time it's undigested, so I'm wondering if mushrooms + olive oil + culturelle caused problems.

Going to try: s.boulardii & phages with FMT in the morning. Then BAS with fat. If BAS with fat works then add olive oil and see if that causes problems like it did last time.

Did capsules for 8 days, introduced fat on the 6th day.

1/5/2019: BM is compact, light brown, and small. Bile acid metabolism restored.

1/14/2019: Fasting for 3 days prior to next FMT. Fasting doesn't seem to have any benefits this time. Too hard to make capsules with the frozen liquid, even when the container is full and just scraping the top. So just took it straight again.

3/7/2019: Adding a bunch of probiotics in preparation for fast then FMT. AR has definitely caused gradual improvements allowing me to do such a thing without the severe side effects I experienced when doing it prior to donor 5. Haven't noticed that much from the probiotics. Gonna take bimuno with FMT. Probiotics caused diarrhea, but I didn't get bad symptoms.

Have noticed bad breath in past few months.

3/13/2019: Was having problems over past weeks with poop smell/fecal body odor (which seemed to get worse during fasts). The probiotics seemed to change it to an oniony smell.

3/16/2019: Unexplained diarrhea (with oniony smell - caused by the probiotics) after switching from steamed-peanuts to walnuts. Will continue till 1 more BM. Large amount of probiotics may have been a significant disruptor with net deficit. Gonna guess the probiotics caused bile problems and add BAS. BAS helped, but undigested nuts might be causing problems.

3/20/2019: Fasting, pre-FMT, lots of gas & LG.

5/13/2019: Very odd FMT this time. Was using BAS, then did FMT. Then did 1 day juice fast then 1 day water fast, then 2 days juice fast. Got diarrhea (light brown and smelled fine), which I attributed to BAS, but then got SS gas which continued the next day. Still not getting hungry from fasting.

5/25/2019: Brazil nuts seemed to ruin my bile acid metabolism (but not completely?). Used BAS, started feeling the weakness and soreness in knee/quad area.

5/28/2019: Did one FMT with dinner & BAS, then one in the morning before breakfast (cheese & grapes). Seemed completely ineffective at first, but was just a delayed effect.

6/21/2019: BAS causes problems, but bile acid metabolism doesn't seem complete. Also dealing with urine/old people smell and smelly balls. Also fatigue and anxiety, and poor nut digestion. Think I need rectal FMT, but don't have much left.

6/24/2019: Seemed that taking BAS till my stool turned dark green was the key. Yet still unstable. Seems like the dark green stool caused the bad smells to go away. Maybe if I do milk-only while taking FMT.

11/16/2019: At a spot where I'm doing okish on 0 fat and 0 BAS (BAS was causing new skin problems), but the last of the FMTs are still in the freezer, so thinking to finish them off instead of leaving them there. Tried 1-2tbls orally, then again 1 week later, while sticking with diet. It made stool softer, but not dark or green, and improved face, and energy was fine. But adding 3tbls olive oil (2 BMs later) caused diarrhea. So I don't know wtf is going on.

12/22/2019: Took last of AR FMT on 2nd day of juice fasting. Used the last (~1-2tbls) from the cup that was effective, and ~4-5tbls from the cup that was less effective. Got a wet fart right after. It seemed like it was doing something - smells were changing - but BM was the same soft and sticky light brown after.

AR FMT this time caused some strong fishy odor, from my colon, not scrotum. But didn't really notice much else.

01/04/2020: Bok Choy seemed to make me feel worse, also permanently removed the soft and sticky from stool, and made it bit undigested/speckled. BM frequency increased from every 3 days to every day. Stool not smelly. Overall I don't feel much different at all. It also triggered a head cold I think; which I haven't had in many years.

05/07/2020: Apparently my bile acid metabolism is fine and I don't need BAS to eat cheese.

05/08/2020: Seems to be partial only.

11/19/2020: AR's stool making mine dark seemed to be beneficial. After that wore off a bit (seemed like a niacin flush was a culprit) I am benefiting from a certain type of dark green iron (65mg iron (ferrous sulfate)) that makes my stools dark & green and more compact.

---

Donor 9, MG

MG infusions - another one of RDS’s donors.

Type 4 stools plus previous antimicrobial use (years ago) said to me that he would not be highly effective, and it turned out to be exactly that.

Prior to starting FMTs:

Supplements: Jarrow's s.boularii, culturelle, preforpro phages, creatine, 25mg zinc, 2k vitamin D, 5mg lithium orotate, imodium 3x/day.

Diet: watery fruits (no bananas), white rice, some vegetables, walnuts, olive oil, cheese, some spices,

Symptoms: Mostly low brain function & fatigue. Recently got some mild improvements due to a mild & temporary immune stimulation after getting the Gardasil 9 vaccine.

​

Summary: Can't say for sure, but maybe contributed to mild improvements. Didn't seem to have any detriments. I took high dose iodine near the end which seemed to kill off many of the beneficial microbes I got from AR. And unfortunately it doesn't look like MG has the necessary microbes to replace them. Overall exactly what I would expect from a type 4 donor with previous antimicrobial use.

Tried both whole stool flash frozen on dry ice, vs strained & slow frozen with glycerol. Did both rectal & oral (capsules). 11x over 3 weeks. Then 1 last glycerol infusion 1 month later after using high dose iodine. Didn't notice any difference between whole stool vs mixed with glycerol, but didn't really notice much overall.

​

9/26/2018: Begin MG FMTs.

9/29/2018: Haven't noticed much so far, which is inline with type 4 stool and previous antibiotic use. Maybe some minor detrimental head symptoms, but could be due to stopping supplements (confirmed). Since BM frequency is increasing I guess I'll restart all supplements.

10/2/2018: Feeling better after restarting supplements. Blood flow improving. But looks like something in my diet is softening & bulking stool. Not sure what (was probably cinnamon). Guess I'll stop culturelle and restart FMTs.

10/17/2018: No major benefits or problems from glycerol. Might have increased stool frequency & bulk a bit.

10/27/2018 - 11/3/2018: Still some instability, not sure why. But overall function, including brain, has been improving over past weeks. Added back culturelle.

11/10/2018: Lugol's iodine (6 drops 2x/day for 2 days - https://drsircus.com/iodine/iodine-supplements-and-dosages/) seemed to only have detriments. Messing with my sense of smell. Cold & fatigued. Stinky (bile-ish) & darker stool. Dry hands, chest slightly heavy, skin lightly burning. It seems like it's killed off everything beneficial that AR gave me. I'm worried that it's done permanent damage only reversible with AR FMTs. Can't remember why I tried iodine again. Maybe due to the instability and reading about it having benefits on testosterone, as well as recalling that around the time I first took it was when I started improving.

11/13/2018: Damage seems to be fading. But will use the last half of MG glycerol FMT, then will juice fast for a day.

Sleepy and gassy the next day after the last glycerol FMT. Still had a BM the next day despite juice fasting. But apple juice still seems bad for me (post donor 5).

11/17/2018: Even after MG infusion FMT I'm still getting really fatigued/sleepy, cold, light heart pounding and sinky/heavy chest after fat (peanuts/walnuts & olive oil) meal. Which wasn't happening before I took Lugol's this most recent time.

11/18/2018: Seems like MG's stool cannot fix bile acid metabolism. Still have strong fatigue, cold, dry hands, softer & more undigested stools, chest heavy/sinky. Have to remove nuts (and maybe more fat) from diet.

I guess one thing I missed was top-down FMT after the iodine. But I doubt it would have made a major difference.

11/30/2018: Confirmed that I need Cholestyramine again to eat any fat, but it still fatigues me. I’m doing much better with 0 fat.

Fixed these issues by using donor 8 again: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/experiment-with-enema-only-vs-top-down-oral-capsules-colon-only-method.58/

---

Donor 10, UT-AW

HumanMicrobes.org donor: UT-AW-1998

Prior to FMT:

I'm mostly dealing with the same issues as I was after donor 5. Though I have significantly reduced symptoms to where I'm no longer completely bedridden and near death. Though I'm still mostly homeridden, and frequently in bed.

AR (donor #8) was able to fix some of my food intolerances (fat & some FODMAPs primarily), and even allow me to digest nuts (something I didn't do well as far back as I can remember). Though the effect seems easy to lose/fades over time and also seems unstable. I didn't feel like more FMTs from AR would be cost effective since it doesn't seem like AR is able to fully correct my issues. AR also seems to have some sort of weakness-causing pathogen.

I discovered that after some of the AR-stool effect fades and I have to restart Cholestyramine, eating cauliflower once per day allows me to completely remove Cholestyramine from my diet. My guess is that cauliflower is boosting the microbes needed for bile acid metabolism. 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate) also seems to play a similar role.

Symptoms:

CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), IBS-D. Very low brain function. Still very underweight. Brain frequently feels inflamed and "full". My memory is terrible. I feel like I have mild Alzheimer's/type 3 diabetes https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2769828/. Chronic sinus stuffiness. Wounds heal extremely slowly, poorly, and incompletely, and are caused easily. I've been having problems with swelling of my feet and face. Permanent "bruising" showed up in my feet. Dark bags under eyes. Face frequently pale and swollen. Many food intolerances, including to many FODMAPs. Almost no sex drive.

Diet:

Jack cheese, select fruits, white sweet potatoes, olive oil, some limited spices, honey, basmati white rice, some leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower.

Supplements:

Cholestyramine, imodium, creatine, Jarrow's s. boulardii, culturelle, floraphage, 100mg b1, b complex, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate), 25mg zinc.

Summary:

I did 11 days of daily top-down FMTs (plus one enema) with the plain stool, starting off with a 4.5 day juice fast, then took a week off and did 6 days with the maltodextrin-stool. I haven't noticed anything yet. I ordered 3 normal stools, and 2 with maltodextrin. I tried all 5 and no results.

10/26/2021: Realized I had been using iodized salt for the past month or so. Previously it seemed to "kill off" or displace the bile acid metabolizing microbes I got from AR FMTs, so now that I've stopped we'll see if anything changes.

Doing 1 lower + 1 upper FMT per week. Lower before bed, upper in the morning on empty stomach with water, 2 hours before meal.

11/10/2021: Not seeing any significant changes/benefits. Testing double encapsulated, delayed release pills to see if it's any better than the traditional Ugandan method.

11/18/2021: Can't say I noticed anything significant from the double encapsulation. Trying the maltodextrin stools, double encapsulated.

11/20/2021: I think the donor's stool is displacing the donor microbes from the previously-most-helpful donor I used. Still no benefits, but I think my tolerance to fat & protein might be getting a little worse. My BMs have become unstable - Eg: one small and firm one that skipped a day, then two larger ones in one day. Plus I'm getting a ton of very putrid gas - the odor of which is the type that started when my intolerance to fat & protein started - though this may just be due to undigested protein in the donor's stool. I want to try adding back s.boulardii and phages, but will try one fresh stool first.

11/25/2021: Tested fresh stool refrigerated in vacuum sealed bag for 24 hours, then left the rest in the syringe and refrigerated that to use the next day (total 48 hours refrigerated). The bad sewer-smelling gas definitely seems to be from undigested protein in the donor's stool. No benefit from fresh (vs frozen) stool.

–-

09/27/2021: begin juice fasting (vegetable & fruit juice). Juice fasting has been causing me diarrhea in recent years. Not sure why. But it has the unintended, but possibly beneficial, function of clearing out my bowels.

09/28/2021: 1/2 tbls stool orally. No apparent impact throughout the day.

09/29/2021: ~1/2tbls via enema. No apparent impact.

09/30/2021: 1/2 tbls stool orally. No obvious impact throughout the day. But halfway through I started feeling irritated, gas changed from good smell to lighter, and hints of sewer smell.

10/01/2021: End juice fast. Begin food.

10/02/2021: Stopped s.boulardii and phages, just because I feel like I have probably not been dependent on them anymore for quite some months, after I figured out that a certain type of iron supplement seems to the job. [Comment: I noticed no changes from stopping these two supplements]

10/06/2021: I've continued to take 0.5-1 tbls orally each day, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach with water, ~2 hours before meal. Yesterday I increased my dose of 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate) from 1x/day to 3x/day. Today I started taking the iron together with the stool as well. I have noticed with my prior donor that iron seems to boost the donor microbes involved in bile acid metabolism. And thus adding/increasing iron supplementation has allowed me to not need Cholestyramine in the past. But the juice fast + diarrhea seems to decrease/ruin my bile acid metabolism, at least temporarily. So I'm adding more iron to try to boost the donor's microbes. I have been taking Cholestyramine with meals since I ended my juice fast.

10/07/2021: Started taking the stool with/right before first meal.

10/08/2021: Only now is my stool starting to smell like the donor's. (was only temporary)

10/09/2021: Went back to taking the stool with water on empty stomach ~2hrs before meal. But still taking it with iron, and I added MOS (Mannan Oligosaccharides). I typically get a bad reaction from prebiotics (fatigue, head feeling inflamed), including MOS, and it seemed that I still got a bad reaction even when taking it with the donor stool (same as when I tried this with previous donors). I'm going to stop the daily FMTs, and possibly switch to a 1-2x per week. I'm also stopping Cholestyramine today, since the color (dark) and consistency of my stool seems to indicate that I've recovered from the juice fast + diarrhea, and no longer need Cholestyramine.

Still no obvious impacts from this donor.

10/11/2021: Seems like I have to get back on Cholestyramine. The previous donor I used that temporarily fixed my bile acid metabolism seems stronger than this donor. Just a few tbls of diluted stool from the other donor would have gotten me off Cholestyramine by now. Yet this donor seems to have done nothing - not even helped me recover from the juice fast back to baseline of not needing Cholestyramine if I'm eating cauliflower.

10/12/2021: First possible change I've noticed is that the donor has small stools, and I just had a small BM.

I'll try the maltodextrin-stool next.

10/15/2021: ~1tbls straight w/maltodextrin. Took with 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate). Maybe noticed a very slight reaction within 15-30 minutes. Felt sick later in the day.

Continued daily maltodextrin-FMTs with iron. Not really noticing anything. Maybe just some mild action/sensations in the gut.

10/20/2021: Last day of maltodextrin-FMTs. Still haven't noticed anything.

10/21/2021: [almost] Back to pre-juice-fast baseline. Able to remove Cholestyramine.

10/26/2021: Realized I had been using iodized salt for the past month or so. Previously it seemed to "kill off" or displace the bile acid metabolizing microbes I got from AR FMTs, so now that I've stopped we'll see if anything changes.

10/26/2021: ~1tbls via enema before bed.

10/27/2021: ~1tbls straight w/maltodextrin.

11/03/2021: ~1tbls via enema before bed.

11/04/2021: ~1tbls straight w/maltodextrin.

11/05/2021: Finally seeing some changes. Stool was firm and small, and skipped a day.

11/06/2021: Meh. I don't think there are any significant improvements.

11/09/2021: ~1tbls via enema before bed.

11/10/2021: Trying double encapsulated pills to see if it's any better than the traditional Ugandan method. [20 double encapsulated pills. 00 delayed release inner, 000 gelatin outer].

11/12/2021: [16 double encapsulated pills. 00 delayed release inner, 000 gelatin outer] that had been in the fridge since 11/09.

11/18/2021: [13 double encapsulated pills with maltodextrin. 00 delayed release inner, 000 gelatin outer]

11/23/2021: [25-30 double encapsulated pills using fresh stool refrigerated in vacuum sealed bag for 24 hours. 00 delayed release inner, 000 gelatin outer]

11/24/2021: [30 double encapsulated pills using fresh stool refrigerated in the syringe for another 24 hours. 00 delayed release inner, 000 gelatin outer]. Energy is increased a couple hours later, but nothing too unusual.

11/28/2021: Bad SS gas stopped after I stopped the FMTs. I'm quite sure it was due to undigested protein in the donor's stool. And that undigested protein also helps explain why this donor didn't work for me.

---

Donor 11, FL-RS

HumanMicrobes.org donor: FL-RS-1997

Prior to FMT:

Everything pretty much the same as prior to UT-AW-1998. Except worse tolerance for fat/cheese since AW's microbes seemed to crowd out AR's.

Symptoms:

CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), IBS-D. Very low brain function. Still very underweight. Brain frequently feels inflamed and "full", poor circulation, and other things that are hard to describe such as a pressure/circulatory pain, a bludgeoning feeling, etc.. My memory is terrible. I feel like I have mild Alzheimer's/type 3 diabetes https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2769828/. Chronic sinus stuffiness. Wounds heal extremely slowly, poorly, and incompletely, and are caused easily. I've been having problems with swelling of my feet and face. Permanent "bruising" showed up in my feet. Dark bags under eyes. Face frequently pale and swollen. Many food intolerances, including to many FODMAPs. Almost no sex drive.

Ears have been leaking (mostly at night) for past few weeks. It's caustic and burns my skin. Not too sure what the trigger is/was, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with multiple things:

1. Chronic infection. My body seems incapable of mounting an immune response. I haven't really been sick in over a decade, but I've been feeling unwell all the time. Cause could be an ear infection, head cold, etc. that my body can't fight off.

2. Related to the Alzheimer's mechanism of drainage of waste and toxic proteins https://archive.ph/19Ibb#selection-2475.11-2479.0. I have mild Alzheimer's symptoms so clearly my waste-clearing system isn't working well. My circulation seems poor too. There may be blockages.

Diet:

Jack cheese, select fruits, white sweet potatoes, olive oil, some limited spices, honey, basmati white rice, some leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower.

Supplements:

Cholestyramine (BAS), imodium, creatine, b complex, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate), 25mg zinc.

Summary:

Similar but different from RDS-AR. Better at some things, worse at others. Should be safer, but a little weaker overall for my bile acid metabolism & fatigue issues. But possibly a little stronger in regards to protein & other various food tolerance. Mild overall improvements; moderate improvements for IBS. Allowed me to stop BAS, add peanuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, avocados, increase amount of cheese, improved some IBS aspects such as making fart & stool odor very mild, and improved stool consistency, and decreased size of stools. No noticeable problems or differences from frozen vs refrigerated for up to 9 days. Did a 3 day juice fast afterwards; didn't notice any significant benefits from that. Tried black eyed peas and oatmeal - tolerance definitely improved, but one of them still seemed too problematic.

Benefits faded a bit after a few months. So I tried a 1x/week dose, which might be decent as a maintenance dose, but didn’t seem particularly beneficial.

02/09/2022: First stool I received was small, dark, type 2, dry, uniform. The odor and taste are very mild, like healthy stool. It was refrigerated in a zip lock bag for ~24 hours, with the air removed. I took 0.5-1tbls orally, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, with water, ~2 hours before breakfast. Refrigerated another same dose for the next day, and straight-froze the rest.

Maybe caused a slight increase in energy that day, but the change could have been due to other normal variation as well.

I've consistently noticed that when I have certain types of major changes to my gut microbiome I dream of an apocalyptic scenario where the world is being destroyed by volcanoes, monsters, massive waves, etc.. I think it's clear that the gut microbiome impacts dreams. I wonder if it would even be too much to say that gut microbes are communicating through dreams to some extent. Technically "communication" would qualify as signals of "good/happy" "sad/bad", so it's not too much of a leap.

Continued taking one small dose each morning. Did a deep retention enema after ~5 days, then another enema a week after that.

About 5 days in I was able to stop taking Cholestyramine. Then a few days later stopped taking iron, but had to add back a smaller dose.

02/23/2022: Historically, I used to feel best with light brown stools. After 5-7 donors that changed, and all symptoms would drastically worsen unless my stool was dark. I was using iron + Cholestyramine to make my stools dark. After two weeks of FMTs from this donor I stopped taking them, and my stools are now light brown with none of the severe symptoms (somewhat like sepsis) I would normally experience. Though I did start to have more mild versions of the same issues, so I added back some iron to darken stool again, and that helped.

02/26/2022: Second stool I received was softer than the first (type 4 vs type 2-3), but otherwise similar. Kept it refrigerated and took two doses orally (1st mid-day I received it, 2nd early morning next day) before using the softer half for enema the day after I received it. 1.5 hours after the enema I experienced heavy fatigue in bed. Cool/light burning sensation at cecum that spread to whole right side colon.

I haven't had a reaction like this from a stool donor in a very long time. The previous enemas from this donor were with frozen stool, and I experienced a more mild reaction from them. In general, enemas from this donor seem significantly more powerful than all other donors I've used in recent years (at least the last two thirds of the 11 donors I've used). Enemas from this donor seem to have a larger impact than upper route too. This type of heavy sleepy fatigue is not something I've experienced in a long time. Donor 6 once triggered a similar thing.

Factors that may have contributed: stool softer than last time. Fresh, not frozen.

It seems to be the softness, since this softer 2nd stool seemed to reverse some of the benefits I got from the 1st one, and I had to add back BAS. Then I did a fresh enema with the 3rd stool and noticed no reaction.

I kept the stool in the refrigerator while using it for a week. Didn't notice any issues/problems.

03/15/2022: Third stool's firmness was in between 1 & 2. The impacts were closer to stool #1, and did allow me to stop BAS and add peanuts again. This donor has also had a fairly strong mucus-related effect. Mucus production has increased. My farts smell like mucus, overall odor of BMs is drastically reduced. I'm thinking that if I fast now the benefits/results may be significantly different from what I've experienced in the past. I'm hoping/thinking this donor may be able to fix/improve my mucosa barrier.

04/23/2022: Fast didn’t seem to do much, but I didn’t get diarrhea from it (which is new). IBS is significantly improved still.

Continued benefits & new benefits months after stopping:

2022-05-09: Holy shit. Apparently I can eat meat now. I haven't been able to tolerate protein for like a decade, after I took Rifaximin. Will update with more details soon.

2022-05-14: Yep, not only can I tolerate, meat, eggs, protein, but I'm craving them and they're beneficial for me.

2022-05-24: Have gotten further improvements to head/brain. I've been starting to be able to lie my head flat at night. Ever since I used donor 5 and started getting bad head trouble, I've had to incline my bed plus use a folded pillow to prop my head up during sleep, or instead of some mild recovery during sleep my head gets much worse - inflammation, swelling, feeling full, etc.. Seems to be related to these drainage issues: https://archive.ph/19Ibb#selection-2475.11-2479.0

Temporarily lost most of the benefits from stopping iron & eating mushrooms (disruptive prebiotic effect):

My stools got lighter in color, and larger, and then loose & undigested (from the mushrooms). I started getting bad gas. The detriments were nowhere near what they would have been prior to this donor. In fact, I didn’t experience any severe head problems at all. Thus, the brain protection that this donor gave was quite durable.

My tolerance for fat and protein dropped extremely low. Hasn’t been this low for many years.

I’ve experienced two sets of phenomenon since donor 8:

  1. FMT benefits are very easily perturbed/lost. It seemed the microbes only occupied a top layer and didn’t penetrate to lower ones. Possibly due to not enough FMTs.
  2. There’s an ability to switch back and forth between states. One state is more tolerant of fat & protein and can be boosted & switched to by taking iron & BAS, and cauliflower (and possibly bok choy) seemed to boost it as well.

I was worried I upset things to the point of completely losing the benefits. But it seems that this donor is powerful enough, and/or my FMT procedure was good & long enough that the benefits were durable and long-lasting, and I was able to regain all benefits.

I would continue with a 1x/week dose but there are some other donors I’m interested in testing. (Fell through)

Benefits started wearing off? Or a "new normal"? Tested a 1x/week dose:

2022/08/09: It seemed like the benefits were starting to wear off, so I started a 1x/week dose.

2022/09/17: It looks like my new "ideal" is zero iron. I don't actually know if the 1x/week dose caused this, or if it just seemed like benefits were wearing off because my new "ideal" changed. Either way, FMT from this donor is reversing the damage from Prescript-Assist and Donor 5. And my status is changing back to what it was prior to those two things. And it's even reversing some of the damage done from Rifaximin in regards to protein & fat intolerance.

Sleep & IBS are also improved again after finding this new normal. I'm still fatigued a lot though.

The "new normal" faded, and I went back to 1-2 iron per day.

I'm not really sold on the 1x/week dose. It's probably decent as a maintenance dose but nothing more than that.

For many years (discovered after donor 5) I was dependent on bok choy to keep my stools firm. This donor seemed to fix that.

11/01/2022: Doing fairly well on 1-2 iron per day. Gas is often an issue again though due to the instability.

I'm often going for walks after meals instead of fatigued in bed; but not all the time.

Longer logs:

02/09/2022: Small nugget (about 0.5-1 tbls) of fresh stool (refrigerated in zip lock bag for ~24 hours) orally. Some light gas. Increase in energy 1.5 hours later, and throughout the day.

Kept one nugget/tbls in the refrigerator and froze the rest.

02/10/2022: Took another right before/with breakfast: [1 nugget about 0.5-1 tbls, 1/4th cup (dry) malt o meal, 3 bananas, 3tbls honey, cocoa, creatine, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate)]. Didn't notice anything.

02/11/2022: Small nugget (about 0.5 tbls) of frozen stool orally.

Continued taking 1 nugget of frozen stool first thing in the morning on empty stomach with water.

02/14/2022: Felt a bit ill and restless last night. Then a greenish BM today. Then did a deep retention enema (DRE).

02/15/2022: BM skipped a day after doing the enema, and I'm getting lots of gas that smells like donor stool.

02/15/2022: Removed BAS (Cholestyramine).

02/18/2022: Stool still soft and greenish so decreasing Iron and adding peanuts. Very gassy today but gas died down at peanut/last meal.

02/22/2022: Gas has been pretty pungent/sour-like. Not really good/bad. Kind of unique with hints of SS. Stool got lighter after removing Iron and adding peanuts, but no significantly ill effects from it, as would normally be expected for the past ~3 years.

02/23/2022: Going to add back 1 iron (was taking 3) with peanut meal since there were some undigested nuts in my stool, and I am still experiencing some mild detrimental symptoms associated with lighter stools, such as fatigue & head full, slightly cold.

02/25/2022: Doing better after adding iron back. Gas came back too. Received 2nd stool today; will continue FMTs. 2nd stool was small, but softer & probably a bit lighter color. Experienced the same/similar energy increase, but confounded by already improving due to iron.

02/26/2022: Took another small (1tbls) dose first thing this morning, then did a DRE (deep retention enema) with the softer half (2-3 tbls) of the stool. Heavy fatigue in bed. Cool/light burning sensation at cecum that spread to whole right side colon.

02/27/2022: Stool was dark green, but 2nd half was soft. So reduced iron to 1 (from 2) with peanut meal. Weight dropped, some light heart pounding after peanuts, and light hip pain in the morning tells me I'm not handling peanuts well, and possibly even need to add back BAS. Seems the soft donor stool may have had a detrimental impact.

Experiencing hip pain and fatigue after enema with the softer half of the 2nd stool. Not sure what the cause is. Could be: Peanuts, lack of BAS, amount of iron. I guess I'll remove peanuts, add a small dose of BAS, and stick with 1 iron. But I'm craving peanuts, and since AR, typically "green stool = add more peanuts & fat/cheese". And stool did get firmer after I decreased iron from 2 to 1.

02/28/2022: Hip pain has mostly subsided, and sex drive has increased.

03/01/2022: It seemed like I was improving, and stools were trending firmer with "1 iron with peanut meal" being the right balance. But just had a soft & sticky BM, with hints of SS, so I guess I have to add BAS back. Last oral dose of FMT today. I have been doing daily oral doses with the firmer half of the stool.

03/02/2022: Still soft and sticky after adding smaller dose of BAS with each meal, and also getting some light SS, so will increase BAS, but not really sure what to do. Did an enema before bed with the last 1-2 tbls of stool (some of the firmer part) that's still been refrigerated (unfrozen) since it was produced.

03/03/2022: Energy is up, but could be due to increased BAS.

03/04/2022: Stool was mixed brown and green. Has gotten firmer since increasing BAS. I think I'll add 1 more iron to avoid any detrimental impacts from lighter stools.

03/05/2022: Good BM after increasing BAS and doing 2 iron.

03/07/2022: BM skipped a day but got larger and softer, and less green at the end. Not too sure what to do. I guess I'll try decreasing BAS.

03/09/2022: Think I decreased it too much.

03/11/2022: Doing better after increasing BAS. Gas smells like this donor's stool, which is very light, healthy, and like mucus. I think/hope it's improving my gut barrier. Appearance is better today.

03/14/2022: Stool is getting softer and greener, and I'm getting the weakness and soreness in thighs. Since AR this has indicated that I can stop BAS and add fats and peanuts. But UT-AW-1998's stool seemed to override that a bit, and while FL-RS helps, it doesn't seem the same as AR. So I probably can't remove BAS completely, but will decrease the dose. Unfortunately this is corresponding with receiving an FL-RS stool tomorrow, so that will make the results from FL-RS a little less clear. But I'll wait till after tomorrow's BM to do an enema with FL-RS's stool.

03/15/2022: Stool is still soft and green after decreasing BAS. But just recently when I tried to stop BAS it seemed like I couldn't tolerate it. So I'm just decreasing BAS a little more. And unfortunately will need to start doing more FMTs at the same time since I got it fresh and want to see if fresh enema seems more effective than the frozen enemas I did previously.

3rd stool I received today is even smaller than the others. All of them have been small, dark and uniform. This one is firmer than the 2nd but still softer than the first. Using the softer part of the stool (about 1tbls) for enema. Experienced stomach bubbling and gas, but no other "reaction".

03/16/2022: Starting oral doses (less than 1/2 tbls), first thing in the morning with water. Continued very light mucus-odor gas. Energy up a bit.

03/19/2022: Ears have stopped leaking and face and hair improved a bit, even though I am/was pretty sure I can't handle this little BAS. I'm thinking more BAS, but add peanuts, might be the better option. But stools are getting firmer.

Right foot's been slightly swollen for the past 1-2 weeks. For the past 6-12 months it's been ok.

BM skipped a day. In bed early, then feeling ill, then hot - maybe very light fever, maybe finally a reaction?

03/22/2022: Added peanuts last night. Typically I would only do that if I wasn't needing BAS anymore, but this donor seems like they have some of the jigsaw pieces, but not others, so it seemed possible that I might be able to do peanuts if I kept taking BAS, but at the end of the night I started experiencing mild detrimental symptoms, such as sinus stuffy, light heart pounding, restless and gassy. Then later in the day some light SS gas started. So this donor seems not as good in some ways, though different, than RDS-AR. I'll just decrease the amount of peanuts for now.

03/23/2022: Well, even with only a very small amount of BAS per meal, plus peanuts, stool is still fairly soft and darkish green. Going to remove BAS and keep the lesser amount of peanuts.

Last FMT dose today, via enema.

03/26/2022: Fairly stable on 2x iron, no BAS, 2tbls of peanuts, and still the increased amount of cheese. Still fairly gassy, but it's almost all very light mucus odor.

03/27/2022: had quite a nice looking & smelling stool. And definitely doing better overall.

04/01/2022: Had a soft & dark/dark green BM. Possibly due to switching to raw/blanched peanuts vs baked/roasted.

04/03/2022: Yeah, baking the peanuts seemed to help, though the texture is not the same as the ones you buy already roasted, and BM reflects that. IBS is improved. Hair and skin are also mildly improved.

04/07/2022: Tried walnuts and they seemed to be the same or worse than raw/blanched peanuts. Though stool slightly improved the next day.

04/07/2022: Sore throat, other parts of body sore (right shoulder), feeling weak and rundown. It's been decades since I've experienced this. I'm hoping it means that my immune system is being turned back on. I'm thinking it is, especially since I'm still eating walnuts and not having a BM (usually daily).

04/10/2022: Still feeling run down, and head cold coming on. After almost 2 days of no BM, I had a very nice (smelling & looking) BM. Took on characteristics of this donor's stool. Dark type 3 with light mucus odor. Walnuts are clearly tolerable. This is actually as good or better than RDS-AR in many ways.

04/11/2022: Avocados fine. Still sick with mild cough and cold.

04/14/2022: Still sick with cough and cold. Appetite has been decreased during sick period. Originally I wanted to keep diet the same in order to track changes, but eventually decided to give in to the decreased appetite and do some partial fasting. I'm eating 2 meals - 6 hours after waking, then 6 hours after that.

Stool has been variable. Still improved overall. Just trying to find the new balance.

04/17/2022: Added baked brazil nuts. Even with a previous donor that allowed me to add nuts, raw brazil nuts were still problematic. I haven't tried raw this time, since the raw/blanched peanuts seemed worse.

Another very nice looking & smelling stool. Still 2 meals per day. Still cough and cold. All around mild improvements still.

04/18/2022: I think I'm stable enough to where I can start experimenting with more stuff. My brain function is still quite poor, but it seems moderately protected from detrimental symptoms such as pain, burning, inflammation, feeling "full", etc.. Gonna try black eyed peas, then juice fast for a few days.

04/19/2022: Black eyed peas seemed fine. Typically when I'd eat fibrous foods like that it would result in large, softer, and more frequent BMs, often with increased gas, but today's stool seemed unaffected - still small dark and firm. Cough and cold fading. Starting juice fast.

04/20/2022: Many years ago (before I started doing FMTs) juice fasting for 1-2 days was quite beneficial. After the most recent donors it hasn't seemed good/as good, and even results in diarrhea. It seems that this donor has at least ended the diarrhea part. Though I'm still not feeling any benefits from the juice fast.

04/21/2022: The juice fast didn't have any obvious benefits. But I'm feeling confident enough to break my fast with a new food - oatmeal.

Gas and fart odor increasing later in the day, so I guess I can't really tolerate oatmeal and/or black eyed peas yet.

I might try black eyed peas again at some point, and/or red lentils, and possibly more FMT from this donor with a "once per week" oral dose, but I think I have a good enough idea of how effective they are for me, which is fairly mild overall, but moderate for IBS.

More improvements, months after stopping the FMTs:

05/01/2022: Since the oatmeal I've been having a lot of gas. I'm thinking it might be the avocados.

Yep. After stopping avocados, gas died down and stool back to small and firm.

05/07/2022: Decided to buy some salmon at store. Typically meat wouldn't appeal to me at all. I'm doubtful I can tolerate it, but craved it a bit so we'll see. It'll be the first time I've tried meat in around a decade.

05/08/2022: Adding salmon tonight, but last two nights I got hot during the night. Tangy gas with light SS past two days too. In the past week I think I've been getting more fatigue and less head trouble, though fatigue has started decreasing as well.

05/10/2022: No problems from the meat, but stool got softer and larger. Since I experienced none of the bad symptoms (head trouble, sewer smelling gas, etc.) I typically would, I'm thinking it's just a matter of the meat replacing the need for the iron supplement. So I'll try decreasing my iron supplement.

05/12/2022: Meat, eggs, etc. have been completely unappealing to me for the past 10 years or so while I've not been able to tolerate them. Now I'm craving them and they smell really good to me.

Yep, removing the iron tab I was taking with breakfast/cheese, and keeping the one with dinner/peanuts worked well. BM, skipped a day and is firm, medium, and dark. I think imodium might be next to go. That BM was kind of hard to pass.

05/13/2022: My underarms have a normal body odor again. I haven't noticed much underarm odor during the period I haven't been eating meat. When I lost my ability to tolerate meat my underarm odor became very strong and foul. Now it's back to normal.

05/14/2022: Eggs are fine/good. Going to try mushrooms, 1000mg L-Lysine, beef gelatin, 1000mg L-Glutamine.

05/16/2022: Mushrooms seem fine. I was worried because they're prebiotic, and it seemed that oatmeal/high fiber foods are still not the most tolerable for me. Playing some light basketball for the first time in months. I think my ability to do so was decreased after AW's microbes crowded out AR's. I've generally been pretty fatigued after FL-RS, in trade for improved head symptoms/function. So this increase in energy is nice. Some light sciatica stiffness/pain afterwards (which is another thing that AR can/did fix).

05/17/2022: I've been starting to be able to lie my head flat sometimes. Ever since I used donor 5 and started getting bad head trouble, I've had to incline my bed plus use a folded pillow to prop my head up during sleep, or instead of some mild recovery during sleep my head gets much worse - inflammation, swelling, feeling full, etc.. Seems to be related to these drainage issues: https://archive.ph/19Ibb#selection-2475.11-2479.0.

A large, light brown, firm BM today that looked a lot like my BMs used to around 10 years ago before I took Rifaximin and started having trouble with meat.

Even after stopping the 2nd iron on May 14, my BMs stayed dark for a while. I suspect the mushrooms might have helped cause them to turn lighter. No detriments from the lighter stool so far. We'll see. I'm up in weight too.

05/19/2022: Stool remained lighter color, but zero head trouble (as would typically be the case). Stool quality is worse, and gas is increased, so I'll add back one iron. I was also getting a light burning sensation in my lower intestines and also inside near the rectum.

05/21/2022: Sciatica issues are mostly gone. Gas has increased due to stool type changes. And even some light SS before the gas died down completely.

Light head trouble today as my gut transitions back to better stool. Hair and face got worse too. It seems the burning sensation, SS gas, head trouble, etc. were/are due to bile acid metabolism issues. So it seems that the lighter stool also resulted in decreased fat & protein tolerance.

Regarding being able to lie flat at night - it doesn't cause head problems any more, but still a slight stuffy nose/sinus, and one time there was some blockage at the upper spine/lower neck area.

Temporarily lost most of the benefits due to stopping iron & adding mushrooms:

05/25/2022: Bad gas and light intestinal burning is back, so added a 3rd iron, will stop eggs (already reduced from 4 to 2) and meat. Eh, stomach still with a light burning, so fuck it, I'm going to use some BAS. Face and hair haven't been great; dark under eyes.

05/28/2022: Even with dark and firmish BM, stool is still a bit loose and undigested. So I suspect the mushrooms are causing problems.

05/29/2022: Yeah, pretty sure it's the mushrooms. I'm still feeling that light burning + bloating, despite adding BAS.

05/30/2022: It seems mushrooms cause stool to lighten in color, and also disrupt (prebiotic effect), making them softer and more undigested/loose, and thus the bile acid microbes are not dense enough to work well.

05/31/2022: Starting to crave meat/protein again. And the stinky gas is gone.

06/01/2022: Hmm, gas is back and craving is gone. My guess is some balancing act. Maybe because I ate too many nuts last night without BAS. Might have missed one iron too. It might even be that I can tolerate protein, but still need BAS.

06/02/2022: Walnuts don't seem well tolerated.

06/03/2022: Peanuts are ok. Gas died down and odor is almost all gone. Doing ok, but still need BAS, and haven't craved or added protein.

06/03/2022: Bad gas is back. Not sure why. Maybe too much protein/cheese/nuts. I'm going to increase the amount of BAS I'm taking.

06/04/2022: Seems like Peanuts with the increased BAS is problematic. Stopping peanuts.

06/06/2022: Yeah, bile acid metabolism is gone. Increasing BAS didn't seem to do anything helpful.

06/08/2022: Well, increasing BAS caused a temporary diarrhea, and seemingly a shift to increased BAM (foul gas gone, dark green stools). Am progressively reducing BAS now, and that seems to be correct.

Still an intolerance to protein though.

06/09/2022: Head issues have stayed reduced till now. But they're starting to return (was very temporary). I seem to have some fat tolerance (have removed BAS completely), but protein tolerance seems to be extremely low. It's been years since it's been this low. I decreased cheese from 6oz to 2oz, and now removed it completely.

06/12/2022: Doing fairly well on 0 BAS, 0 protein. Was out exercising, but then heavy fatigue in bed later.

06/14/2022: Stool got very dark. I added back cheese, and it seemed fine. Starting to crave protein again. I added peanuts without issue. Hair is improved (not oily or dry – usually one then the other), skin a bit too.

Adding meat & eggs & removing 1 iron. Doing quite well. Gas is gone completely. Light sciatic pain/stiffness limiting me.

06/16/2022: Sciatica improved, stool skipped a day and got firmer, but still soft (and lighter) at end. Probably dropped to 1 iron too soon, so going back to 2/day.

06/25/2022: Doing well on 2x iron/day. BM skipped a day, looks fairly ideal, and was hard to pass. I only have infrequent gas and it has no odor.

But now on the 2nd day of switching from eggs to 8oz salmon I'm getting some stinky gas. I guess I found and passed my protein limit.

08/09/2022: Hmm. I'm feeling again like the benefits are wearing off. I'm only taking 1tbls of walnuts. May be partially due to grape seeds. Stools are fairly soft, I'm fatigued in bed a lot, and gas & LG are often back. Sleep is not refreshing. I lay in bed for a long time tossing and turning after waking. I'm starting a 1x/week FL-RS-1997 FMT dose.

09/17/2022: It looks like my new "ideal" is zero iron. I don't actually know if the 1x/week dose caused this, or if it just seemed like benefits were wearing off because my new "ideal" changed. Either way, FMT from this donor is reversing the damage from Prescript-Assist and Donor 5. And my status is changing back to what it was prior to those two things. And it's even reversing some of the damage done from Rifaximin in regards to protein & fat intolerance.

IE: Prior to this donor, if my stools were anything but very dark I would get severe head symptoms (described at the beginning of this donor section). But historically, prior to Prescript-Assist and Donor 5, my normal was firm light brown stools. Interesting that dark stools from this donor resulted in firm light stools for me. This was not the case for other donors who had dark stools.

Sleep & IBS are also improved again after finding this new normal. I'm still fatigued a lot though.

On 09/11/2022 I did a deep retention enema with saline. I think this is the first time I used saline. I've been using filtered or distilled water. My reasoning being that saline would be important if you were adding it to purified microbes, but not as important when adding it to stool since the myriad of other fecal matter would have a similar impact.

However, this enema with saline may have been more powerful than others. My BMs skipped 2 days and were firm and medium sized – all good things, and 2 days skipped is very rare. I did switch from fish to eggs a couple days after the enema though, so that could have been the cause.

09/24/2022: I don't think the saline enema was anything special.

Even though I have no significant issues with light stool anymore, I've been getting more gas in the past 1-2 weeks, and also started noticing the bad body odor I picked up from a previous donor (which also previously would occur with lighter stools). I added 1 iron back in and the gas & odor decreased, stool firmed up more, but this time it didn't get after some delay it got dark from the iron. When it got darker it also got softer and gas increased, so it seems I need to find the right balance, which is similar for the donor. The balancing act isn't a big deal besides the gas that comes with it.

I'm not really sold on the 1x/week dose. It's probably decent as a maintenance dose but nothing more than that.

10/10/2022: Final 1x/week FL-RS-1997 FMT dose. Seems like I'm shifting back to where a daily iron is best.

10/13/2022: For many years (discovered after donor 5) I was dependent on bok choy to keep my stools firm. This donor seemed to fix that.

Some of the instability seems to be from adding salmon in and out of my diet.

10/23/2022: Fairly stable with 1 iron per day, and eggs, nuts, and cheese. Often going for walks after meals instead of fatigued in bed.

10/25/2022: I thought I needed to reduce iron for the balance, but it turns out that if anything I needed to increase it. I had strong fatigue yesterday, and other symptoms of poor bile acid metabolism (IE: very cold, eyes covered in bed). And today I had a soft & sticky, light-colored BM. Will increase iron.

11/01/2022: Doing fairly well on 1-2 iron per day. Gas is often an issue again though due to the instability.

I'm often going for walks after meals instead of fatigued in bed; but not all the time.

Donor 12, BuddingBear

HumanMicrobes.org donor: NY_BuddingBear_1994

Prior to FMT:

  • IBS relief has not lasted. Things are pretty unstable and I haven't been able to find a balance with diet & supplements. Haven't eaten meat for a long time, but still eating eggs daily.

  • Improvements to head inflammation-type symptoms, and brain function have remained, but brain function is still quite poor. FL-RS had a protective effect where I'm not experiencing active inflammation-type symptoms anymore. Unfortunately it didn't trigger a healing effect I've experienced previously.

  • Face is still typically pretty pale and dark under eyes. This seems associated with stool type, including color.

  • Fatigue is still mildly improved.

  • Weight has increased from 165lbs to 180lbs.

  • Still have leftovers of chronic bruising from a wound on my lower leg from many years ago.

  • Chronic sinus stuffiness is mostly returned I think.

  • Sleep is fairly poor still.

  • Sex drive still quite poor. Probably due to overall poor circulation, which is probably playing a role in other symptoms such as low brain function.

  • Ears are no longer caustically leaking.

  • Chest has been feeling worse recently as the FL-RS FMT wears off.

Diet:

Before: Cheese, eggs, peanuts, brazil nuts, walnuts, fruit, white sweet potatoes, olive oil, spices, honey, basmati white rice, leafy greens, cauliflower.

After: Cheese, eggs, peanuts, brazil nuts, walnuts, fruit, white sweet potatoes, olive oil, spices, honey, basmati white rice, leafy greens, cauliflower.

Supplements & meds:

Before: Imodium 3x/day, creatine, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate) 1x/day, 25mg zinc.

After: Imodium 3x/day, creatine, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate) 1x/day, 25mg zinc. Cholestyramine (BAS).

Summary:

Throughout nearly all the screening this donor seemed like an ideal candidate. After screening 100k+ applicants this person seemed like the #1 rank. Unfortunately, towards the end/at the end of the screening and during the test phase, there were a number of red flags. Despite the donor's red flags, I had a few bags of poop on hand, so I tried it after freezing them for two weeks like they do with raw fish.

This donor has one of the more consistently good & uniform stools, which is something I hypothesized to be important. FL-RS's for example are much more variable. But it seems that FL-RS has something that this donor doesn't. And FL-RS is able to produce certain stools that are quite helpful for me. Whereas this donor wasn't helpful at all.

This donor had no benefits and reversed protein & fat tolerance to the worst it's been in many years. I had to remove all protein, add back BAS, and I'm still way worse. Cold; extensive fatigue and head worse after meals.

There are still people confidently parroting that you simply need to find someone healthier than you, and you'll improve to their level, or at least improve. I've known this to be false for a long time. And this is yet another example of that.

Donor 13, IA_SMJ_2010

HumanMicrobes.org donor: IA_SMJ_2010

Prior to FMT:

BuddingBear made everything worse. I'm fatigued in bed for 2 hours after meals, and I'm getting headaches which is new.

  • Weight down from 180lbs to 170lbs.

  • Chronic sinus stuffiness, sleep very poor and restless.

  • Sex drive still very poor. Probably due to overall poor circulation, which is probably playing a role in other symptoms such as low brain function.

Diet:

Before: Fruit, malt o meal, white sweet potatoes, honey, basmati white rice, leafy greens, cauliflower, butter, spices.

After: Added brazil nuts, walnuts, peanuts.

Supplements & meds:

Before: Imodium 3x/day, creatine, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate) 2x/day, 25mg zinc. Cholestyramine (BAS).

After: Removed Cholestyramine (BAS). Decreased iron to one every 1-2 days.

Summary:

Testing vacuum sealing and "stool type vs breastfeeding". Comments for regulators.

This was a really interesting donor, and I'd probably continue to improve if I kept using them, but I've been prioritizing discovery/testing hypotheses over my own recovery, and will continue to do so for now. I'm quite curious to see what results other people get from this donor.

Overall, for me they are not as good as FL-RS-1997.

I confirmed various aspects of my stool type hypothesis, and learned some new things.

For FMT, stool type is more important than breastfeeding. But that's not to say that breastfeeding is unimportant. For example, this kid's stools are fairly unstable and susceptible to perturbation. The lack of breastfeeding may play a role in that.

This kid is around lots of dogs and it's certainly had an effect on his gut microbiome.

Vacuum sealing and other procedural details like freeze-thaw cycles, saline vs filtered water, fresh vs frozen, all seem to be vastly less impactful than donor/stool quality.

Benefits: Mild improvements to IBS and fat intolerance. Possibly increased intolerance to prebiotics.

All symptoms significantly improved the first day. Headaches gone, not fatigued in bed for 2 hours after meal, gas dramatically decreased. But, just like the donor's stools, it wasn't stable. As usual, I've advised the donor about stool selection for the future.

The good stools smelled very mild, like mucus, and made me smell (farts & body odor) similarly. There was a period during the "changing of the guard" where it was extremely strong and overpowering, but after that it became mild and pleasant. Including a pleasant, mild, mucus taste in my mouth, and feeling in the colon.

Seemed to lower my "issues" from head to heart pounding: In the past my issues started off with heart pounding (along with sensitivity to prebiotics, which seemed to be too stimulative), then it switched/worsened/moved up to cognitive deficits. This donor seemed to reverse that to some degree. It doesn't feel like it's just a change of location, but rather it feels like the problem is being stopped before reaching my head.

In the end, I was not able to find a balanced state. The window to achieve balance is too narrow.

There was someone trolling in an online forum, reaching for any opportunity to attack me. At first they insinuated that something was dangerous about my donors, yet they're a fan of DIY themselves so they realized that wouldn't work. They then resorted to saying the issue was that zip lock bags don't provide adequate protection from oxygen exposure, and thus it won't be effective. Next they admitted that it doesn't matter once the stool is frozen.

Either way, you can simply look at Human Microbes' results to see plenty of people improving. But also, one recipient had already been experimenting with vacuum sealed bags and stuck with regular zip locks in the end. Also, our process is nearly the same as the one used by El-Salhy's super-donor study. This donor was an easy opportunity for me to test it as well, so I did.

I guess it bodes well for me that despite there being numerous people who seem very desperate to attack me, they're unable to find any legitimate flaws. Still it's quite annoying to be constantly bombarded with false attacks when the attackers get significant support instead of being downvoted and told off.

I'm omitting a lot from this report for various reasons. I'm preparing a list with various findings, and I'll include the omissions in there. For some of them I think it's a bad idea to share them publicly, but I'm willing to share them privately with regulatory agencies. Possibly also with specific research groups & companies.

To regulators:

I think FMT will be very hard to regulate. It's very complex. It really depends a lot on the integrity, intelligence, knowledge, and motivations of the people running the company. I'm not sure that you can make FMT "guaranteed safe". The best you could do is allow patients to make informed decisions. I think much of the "good safety record of FMT" is likely due to poor/lack of tracking of longer-term outcomes. Antibiotic studies have the same issue. Antibiotics are definitely not as safe as they're considered to be. Companies and clinical trials are both getting away with "well we did the bare minimum pathogen testing so our donor was safe".

Even if I shared the answer key with every stool provider there's no guarantee or even strong incentive for them to use it. So my advice to regulators would be to mandate the public tracking & reporting of results like we do on our website. With the ability for patients to provide long-term updates at will. And dole out company-killing fines for not doing so. This will provide some incentive for providers to care about, and try to avoid, poor patient outcomes. As is, it's largely a black box besides some random reports on social media. A large percentage of people can and do get worse and it has nearly no impact on the company because few future-customers/patients find out about it.

It is safe to assume that any provider that is not publicly tracking & reporting results has a large percentage of patients getting worse and developing new problems.

Donor 14, SD_ES_2015

HumanMicrobes.org donor: SD_ES_2015

Prior to FMT:

  • Weight down to 162lbs.

  • Chronic sinus stuffiness, sleep very poor and restless.

  • Sex drive still very poor. Probably due to overall poor circulation, which is probably playing a role in other symptoms such as low brain function.

  • Brain function still quite poor.

  • Still quite fatigued and in bed after meals.

  • Still can’t tolerate protein.

  • Stool quality is quite poor as I'm unable to find a balance.

  • Noticed a rough patch of skin on left elbow recently.

Diet:

Before: Brazil nuts, walnuts, peanuts, fruit, white sweet potatoes, basmati white rice, Italian squash, leafy greens, broccoli, butter, olive oil, spices.

After: Added cheese and eggs.

Supplements & meds:

Before: Imodium 3x/day, creatine, 5k vit d, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate) 1x every few days, 25mg zinc.

After: Removed iron.

Summary:

Mild improvements to sleep, fatigue, hair, IBS. Major improvements to stool quality, and protein tolerance.

A few more-promising moments that didn't last. Fatigue is the primary issue still. This donor was similar to FL-RS-1997 for me, but less effective for fatigue.

Since donor #8 or so, I've been relying on keeping my stools dark (usually with iron) to suppress a variety of detrimental symptoms. This donor drastically reduced that necessity. My stools are lighter in color without any problems. My stools were very unstable and usually very soft. They're now stable at type 3-4, dark brown and a bit greenish.

Protein tolerance has increased a lot but still sensitive to prebiotics (carob).

Rough patch of skin on left elbow is decreased a lot.

Appetite and weight slightly decreased.

I'd recommend this donor for treating obesity.

Donor 15, OR_JO_1993

HumanMicrobes.org donor: OR_JO_1993

Prior to FMT:

  • Weight down to 160lbs.

  • Chronic sinus stuffiness.

  • Sleep quality still not great.

  • Sex drive still very poor. Probably due to overall poor circulation, which is probably playing a role in other symptoms such as low brain function.

  • Brain function still quite poor.

  • Still fatigued and in bed after meals.

Diet:

Before: Peanuts, cheese, eggs, fruit, white sweet potatoes, basmati white rice, Italian squash, leafy greens, broccoli, butter, olive oil, spices.

After: Added lentils, black eyed peas, and milk. Started drinking only milk for most of the day and 1 meal at the end of the day.

Supplements & meds:

Before: Imodium 3x/day, creatine, 5k vit d, 25mg zinc.

After: Added iron.

Summary:

Benefits to iron tolerance, prebiotic & legume tolerance, pathogen clearance, weight.

Started with the donor's "worst" stool, and it made my stool lighter in color and soft. Even though the donor's stool was dark and firm. It didn't cause any obvious problems though.

I then skipped straight to what I thought was the best stool and it returned my stools back to firm, medium, dark brown.

I tried adding lentils, which was tolerable but not great.

I took a whole bottle of phages (floraphage). It didn't do anything. I discuss the probable reason why here: https://humanmicrobiome.info/probiotic-guide/#stool-characteristics

Looking at my logs, it seems that IA_SMJ_2010 (mainly the dark green stool) increased my sensitivity to iron, but I still needed to take it. Then SD_ES_2015 seemed to increase my sensitivity/intolerance to iron further, but also allowed me to stop taking it. Now OR_JO_1993 made me able to tolerate iron fine and I can do with/without it, but "with" might be slightly better.

Weight increased from taking iron. My optimal state seems to have trended more towards "taking iron is better".

OR_JO_1993 seemed to also help clear a pathogen from a previous donor's bad stool. My tolerance to prebiotics (carob) seems to have improved as well.

I tried lentils & black eyed peas again now that I'm taking iron, and I can tolerate them just fine.

I tried oatmeal and it wasn't great.

I tried milk now that my protein & fat digestion seems fine again. Milk was fine so I tried milk fasting which was even better. No longer fatigued in bed after meals, so I decided to just drink milk most of the day and eat one meal at the end of the day.

I tried the "worst" stool again by lower route and didn't notice much. It may have been slightly problematic, and possibly more so if taken orally.

Donor 16, NY-KS-1998

HumanMicrobes.org donor: NY-KS-1998

Prior to FMT:

  • Weight 165lbs.

  • Chronic sinus stuffiness.

  • Sleep quality still not great.

  • Sex drive still very poor. Probably due to overall poor circulation, which is probably playing a role in other symptoms such as low brain function.

  • Brain function still quite poor.

  • I ended the previous report with a milk fast. I reintroduced foods one at a time to see which ones were causing the fatigue, and I moved those to the end of the day. So I was back to a normal diet. But my protein tolerance continued to decrease.

  • Fatigue has been gradually worsening.

  • Had to stop peanuts and add Cholestyramine (BAS). Even with BAS, I was getting heavy fatigue from eating/drinking anything with fat. This was reversed as soon as I added back cauliflower to my diet, which also allowed me to add back peanuts.

  • Back to taking iron most days.

  • Skin has gotten super dry recently (probably from stopping imodium & cauliflower). It feels like my body is deteriorating/disintegrating. I had to start using a ton of moisturizing lotion for my whole body.

  • It seemed like I was able to stop imodium https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/how-i-got-off-imodium-loperamide-identify-the-root-cause-and-the-appro.298/, but I added it back and don't want to mess with it until I get big benefits from a donor.

Diet:

Before: Cheese, peanuts, fruit, tomatoes, white sweet potatoes, cauliflower, almond milk, honey, olive oil, olives, spices.

After: Switched peanuts for eggs. No longer reliant on cauliflower.

Supplements & meds:

Before: Creatine, 5k vit d, 25mg zinc, 65mg iron (ferrous sulfate), imodium.

After: No change.

Summary:

https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/humanmicrobes-org-donor-ny-ks-1998-treating-cfs-ibs-mild-alzheimers-la.637/

Donor 17,

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