The things that modern medicine can do today is astounding. I can remember hearing about the first heart transplant, which was done in 1967 when I was 11 years old. The hospital that I worked for in Illinois did a lot of kidney transplants. Doctors have been successful with many other types, including double lung transplants and in the last few years, they've added faces to the list. I just recently read about the most recent types that doctors have been doing and it really is a little disgusting. They are now doing fecal transplant's. To phrase it like Mike Rowe would, they really are taking poo from one person and putting it in somebody else.
So why would a doctor do this? There is an infection called C. diff, which causes chronic diarrhea, and can be fatal. By placing the fecal matter into the colon of a person that antibiotics cannot help, it allows the natural bacteria to overcome the C. diff infection. The infection mainly effects older people, but it is becoming more widespread. I am not sure who came up with the idea to do this, but it is proving to be very effective.
We are seeing more and more diseases that are antibiotic resistant. I wonder if we not be coming to germ conscious and are bringing a lot of it upon ourselves. There are a lot of antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers that are becoming more widespread and their usage. It is possible that this is causing some of these infectious strains to become resistant. Not all bacteria is bad, and we run the potential of doing more harm than good. We may be killing ourselves with good intentions.
1 comment:
I just going to try not to think about that now.
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