What is the most disgusting medical treatment you've ever heard of?
Asked by
Rarebear (
25192
)
March 4th, 2011
Whatever it is, I’ve got you beat. The latest edition of the Medical Letter says, for the treatment of C. difficile infection, “Fecal flora restoration by administration of stool through an NG tube, colonoscopy or enema has had reported efficacy of about 90% in preventing recurrent CDI, but randomized trials are lacking.”
Let me translate that into English. C. difficile is a highly infectious bacteria that causes a severe colitis and is associated with antibiotics administration. It’s treated by a couple of specific antibiotics, but can be resistant to treatment. For recurrent C. difficile infection, what this article is saying, is that you take someone else’s feces, puree it up, and administer it through a nasogastric tube a tube put from your nose into your stomach.
Now, believe it or not, I’ve heard of this before, but it was actually colonic administration of someone else’s feces. And, believe it or not, it works. But this is the first time I’ve heard of administration into the stomach.
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42 Answers
Second to the treatment you have stated in the details, I would have to say that the use of leeches for medical treatment is quite horrifying. I don’t know if it happens here in America, but in the country I am from does it to treat many things. It scares me!
@KatetheGreat Agreed. We use leeches quite frequently in the U.S. They’re really helpful in patients who have had digit reimplantation to help remove the venous congestion.
The only one that came to mind is the one you mentioned in the details. I’m not sure which is more disturbing, that procedure.. or C. diff., itself
@JmacOroni The c. diff is pretty bad, actually. I can see how people would resort to that. We have a local guy who does fecal transplants through the colonoscopes and it works. This is just the first time I’ve heard of it through the stomach.
@Rarebear I agree. C diff. is at the top of my list of things that I wish to never see (read: smell) again. I have heard of the fecal transplants using NG tubes, but I know the other “end” is most common.
Maggot therapy. I hate maggots. Yech.
Fetotomy. Double yech.
It isn’t in humans, but one pretty disgusting one is cud transplant in ruminants- reach down the throat of a healthy goat, grab some horrible, slimy, smelly goo, and shove it down the throat of another unappreciative goat to restore intestinal flora.
@crisw We use maggot therapy all the time actually. Two of our docs wrote a chapter about it in a recently published book. But it is gross when the maggots get out of their containment dressing.
All of these things sound truly horrible and I hope I am never unfortunate enough to need any of these treatments. Ugggh maggots. What gets me though is… who thought of these things? Who thought .. hmmmm this illness? What about if we got someone’s shit and pureed it and fed it into another person’s stomach via their nose? In reality I can see the connection, the required bacteria is in the donor feces but still…........ Who thought, let’s attach eletrodes to a person’s head and run electricity through their brain, that’s sure to make them feel better and I am aware that ECT can be an effective treatment but really…. where do these ideas come from?
@Mz_Lizzy You know, that’s exactly the same question I asked. “Who thinks up this shit?” (So to speak).
lol (so to speak indeed). Still without some of these weird and wacky ideas, some of us would be worse for wear I guess. On a more disturbing note, we know that some advances in medical science have been made on the back of horrific historic events.
Jeez Louise!
I don’t think I’ve heard of anything more disgusting than running fecal matter through someones nose and into their stomach.That’s awful!
Well…actually I did see something once about a family who went on a trip to a desert or something and their daughter fell on a cactus. She had cactus spines all over the back side of her body and the doctors couldn’t remove them. So they found a way by using a type of hair remover and taking out each spine one at a time without anesthesia.
I feel bad for the child!
My above “treatment” isn’t really disgusting…but more a procedure that I thought was odd.
Leeches do not bother me, wading in creeks as a kid they were common.
Snorting poop – that is bad.
I have read of battlefield cauterization in the US Civil War or maybe earlier. Sprinkle the wound with gunpowder and light a match. Poof! (OWWW!!!!!)
Depends on the people ...
For instance i can’t accept a treatment for laringita using salt disolved in water then clean your mouth and throath with it… It’s repulsing for me.
[ it’s all about the person ]
I’m all for the maggot thing being the worst – it gags me out imagining a maggot crawling around in a wound – I am sooooo not for any critter crawling around within me in a way that can be sensed or felt whether it’s something for treatment or whether it is some parasite that appeared after a trip out of the country – I’m not for anything living within me or off of me that isn’t human and even that I’ll only authorize for 9 months or so LOL.
Of course though the treatment itself isn’t the gross thing in this case.. I’m also a bit gagged out by the popping of a MRSA/boil. I made the mistake of clicking on a YouTube video of that little procedure and all I can say is yuck! it pops then oozes and then they stuff it with gauze that is later pulled out in a soaked bloody pus filled nasty ball. gag me!
There are also some who think the whole idea of premarin is disgusting – a med made from the urine of a horse and then the whole constant pregnancy of horses and offing of their offspring all for a mighty dollar disgusts quite a few folks – not sure how I feel about it but it’s worth putting it out there. Same with HCG – pregnant women’s urine made into a med – at least it’s all processed somehow to make it less icky but still – and then of course there are the various lotions that are made from cow urine for the purpose of softening hardened skin/callous on the feet of people with medical issues that may create a tendency toward such things in the area of the feet.
I don’t think anything can top the poop and the maggots, but I find this one both gross and compelling: Helminthic therapy – which actually means ”deliberate infestation of parasitic worms”. It’s relatively new, but looks promising for those of us who have auto-immune disorders.
They had the very treatment that OP posted in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy last season or the season before!
@lucillelucilllucille recently told me how ancient Egyptian women used elephant dung in their VaGG as a contraceptive! Still having nightmares a week later! Thanks a LOT Lucy! ;)
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@augustlan got to mine first. It’s worse when it’s not professionally administered – that is, desparate people trying infect themselves, usually by walking around barefoot in fields of human feces (many of these parasites enter through the feet).
@Mariah
“I’m also a bit gagged out by the popping of a MRSA/boil”
My dog had a skin cyst that grew large enough it needed to be removed under anesthesia. My vet told me it popped right in her face as she was dissecting it free.
@Mariah
I heard a long story once about people who deliberately infect themselves with hookworm as a treatment for inflammatory disease and allergies- there’s actually a fair bit of data that this actually does some good.
As a student nurse I once had to look after a patient who was having maggot debridement of a wound. As the most junior member of staff I got the the job of counting the damn things on and off while changing the dressing.
A friend of mine was on the USS Enterprise while in the Navy.
They pulled out of Bangkok, and many crew members had caught a social disease.
The on-board cure was to have the sailor milk himself to erection, and the ships doctor would take (what was described as) a red hot, straightened out coat hanger, and enter the tip of the penis, thru the urethra, and down about 8 inches.
My friend said the screams could be heard all over the ship, and that is a big ship.
@filmfann
That has got to be an urban legend!
No, my friend told me about it, and he watched it happen
@Cruiser you are so funny!
I guess it’s not a medical treatment far as I know, that is, but urine therapy is disgusting to me. Proponents claim urine is not only bacteria-free but it has saved people from death by dehydration.
I know a nice man , a vegetarian, who saves his in little jars and puts them on his floor. They have bugs swirling around them as do the refrigerated specimens. He’s skin and bones and looks much older than his age but keeps drinking urine to stay healthy.
@filmfann I was in the Navy – a bit of your story is urban legend – the procedure was referred to by the guys as something like “punching the bore” or “getting your bore punched” and was done not with a hot poker of any sort but with something more like the those long wooden q-tip or something similar. It is the same concept as cleaning your rifle barrel and they have to urinate right after which is quite painful from what I hear – even more so than the bore punching itself. This procedure however is not a treatment but rather a part of the testing for particular STD’s.
@crisw unfortunately for the promiscuous men of the navy and marine corps that one is not a legend & thankfully, I was born a female. whew!
Maggot therapy seems horrendous to me. I couldn’t hack that.
Maggot therapy is actually quite amazing, if you can get pass the grossness of it. You put the maggots on a draining wound that needs debridement and the worms eat all the dead tissue while leaving the healthy tissue behind.
@Rarebear I had something done to me medically that was pretty awful, but I’d have to pm you to tell you, that’s if you don’t mind hearing the horrible details. Lol!
PLEASE!!! I“m trying to eat my breakfast, people!
I think Walter Freeman’s treatment must take the biscuit.
I didn’t see the Youtube..but I had an aunt who was given a lobotomy. I assume they’ve discontinued that medieval 20th century experimental practice…..shudder.
According to the video it’s still used, rarely.
I believe Lobotomy is still used as a treatment for severe epilepsy.
@Dutchess_III No idea. It’s just what it said in the video. I’ve personally never seen nor heard of it. In epilepsy, I don’t think they do lobotomies, but they will divide the two hemispheres of the brain.
@Mz_Lizzy I’m sure you’re right. I“ve never seen it. I’ll take your word for it.
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