'Feces transplant' saves woman from superbug
Pastor Dale Morgan
'Feces transplant' saves woman from superbug*
No smell: 'Not like they put it on a plate and have you eat it'
By Megan Levy
Last Updated: 2:39am GMT 29/11/2007
It must be one of the most stomach-churning medical treatments ever devised.
A grandmother who contracted a potentially fatal superbug in Scotland
has been saved after a hospital fed her daughter’s faeces to her.
Ethel McEwan, an 83-year-old from Guardbridge, Fife, was near death
after contracting Clostridium Difficile, the Daily Record reported.
How about that: Weird news from around the world
But she was saved after receiving a "faecal transplant" from her
daughter, Winnifred.
The treatment involves liquidising a sample of faeces from a close
relative of the patient, and feeding the liquid down a tube into the
stomach.
The treatment restores the bacteria to levels at which they help the
recovery process.
"When you tell people about the treatment, they wrinkle their noses,"
Mrs McEwan told the Daily Record.
"But it’s not like they put it on a plate and have you eat it. You don’t
ever see or smell a thing.
"People will have a blood transplant or a kidney transplant – what’s the
difference with this?"