Jerry Grant, Arizona Man With C. Diff, Finds Relief After Fecal Transplant

Jerry Grant, Arizona Man With C. Diff, Finds Relief After Fecal Transplant

Jerry Grant, a 33-year-old Arizona man, has finally found relief for his last six months of pain and rectal bleeding -- in the form of a fecal transplant.

When you're "bleeding rectally for weeks on end, you don't have any choice but to think you're dying," Grant told KPNX 12 News in Arizona. Grant's gut had been taken over by Clostridium difficile (known as C. diff), and wiped out all the other good bacteria.

C. diff causes abdominal pain, bleeding and severe diarrhea, up to 10 or 15 times a day, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Grant couldn't even sit down because it hurt too much, and he and his wife spent thousands of dollars on treatments that just didn't work, 12 News reported.

But finally, the cure came in a very unusual, but notoriously effective, method: to transfer some of his wife's fecal matter (poop), into his own colon, in order to restore his natural balance of bacteria, a process known also as fecal microbiota therapy, according to 12 News. The Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., administered the fecal transplant.

According to WebMD, around 500,000 Americans are infected each year with C. diff, and they are usually infected after they take antibiotics, which could potentially alter the bacteria that are naturally present in the gut.

Just recently, a study was presented at the American College of Gastroenterology's annual meeting examining the efficacy of fecal transplants on 77 people with C. diff, WebMD reported. Seventy of the people (91 percent) didn't have any more diarrhea three months after getting the treatment, and four of the people felt better with the transplant, when they also took an additional round of antibiotics.

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