"It's a bit nutty."
Posted on 09/01/2015 10:26:49 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
You can earn $13,000 a year by donating your poop.
A few months back, we wrote about OpenBiome, a company that provides therapeutic fecal matter. In case you missed that post, here's the general idea: For people with a devastating (and sometimes fatal) infection called C. difficile, a fecal matter transplant (FMT) can be a real life-saver. By putting healthy fecal matter into the patient (by way of oral tablets or colonoscopy), doctors can effectively seed their guts with the healthy bacteria they need to fight off the infection. For people who've failed to thrive on traditional treatments like antibiotics, the transplant -- while gross -- seems miraculous.
Now CNN has followed one of these noble poop donors through his daily routine.
"I had no idea,” Eric told CNN of his poop. “It turns out that it’s fairly close to perfect.”
But getting a clean bill of health isn't enough: Eric's donations, which earn him $40 a sample, need to follow certain guidelines. Consistency guidelines. From CNN:
[Types one or two, defined by the Bristol Stool Chart as “like nuts” or “lumpy,” are too dry to process into a treatment.
If a donor’s stool is “mushy” or “watery” — that’s a type six or seven — then it can’t be used because it could be a sign the donor has a gastrointestinal infection.
The perfect poop is type three, which is “like a sausage but with cracks on its surface;” type four, which is “like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft;” or type five, “soft blobs with clear-cut edges (passed easily).”]
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I also let out an eewww. Be careful around her, though. People with cdiff have a lot of diarrhea, which is extremely contangious. If she isn’t fiendish about washing her hands after handling her laundry, the virus could be on surfaces all over her home, etc.
My mom had C-diff. That is some nasty stuff.
It’s probably like an Obama nuclear deal: They let you rate yourself.
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