I agree completely. For me it was all desperation. I was in a Yahoo group of fellow sufferers, and there was a discussion about an Australian doctor who had published a study in which he cured 20 people of colitis via fecal transplant. Some members of the group ended up going to see him. I couldn't afford to go, but I was able to download the complete paper he published via my brother's university account. It had a complete procedure. I basically just copied it, at home. My dad is a microbiologist, and my mom was a nurse, but it was simple enough for anyone to copy.

Since then a lot has happened in the fecal transplant space. I know there are freeze dried encapsulated pills that are used today. I think the most common disease that gets fecal treatment is c difficile. I doubt it's very easy to find a doctor that is knowledgeable about the space, and get in line for treatment, but there is definitely something to it with certain types of colitis/chrons.

I also got Crohn’s after a trip to Morocco and my symptoms just gradually got worse until I was diagnosed with the condition around 4 years later. I was sure it was from something I picked up on that trip as I had never had an issue with my stomach before that point. Doctors ran lots of tests but unfortunately everyone’s microbiome is different so it’s impossible to say what is wrong or right.

I wanted to try FMT but it is not available in my country as a treatment for IBD outside of trials. I did however do lots of research as I’m sure everyone does. It’s not like there’s much else to do when on another extended stay in the hospital. I found that another way to drastically alter your own micro biome. Basically you starve all the bacteria. Most bacteria is in your large intestine, so I stopped all nutrition from reaching this area. The only methods to do this are to not eat at all for 6 weeks or longer except using a milkshake, elemental 028 (has to be this type I’ve not heard of anything else that’s similar). You can not cheat at all during the process even once. These were developed for astronauts so they wouldn’t produce waste in space and get absorbed within the first meter of your small intestine. This allows the rest of your intestines to heal. They are insanely expensive and you need a lot. God bless the NHS is all I will say. Or to undergo a temporary surgery where they put you on a stoma for a short period before switching back this is obviously a lot more invasive and not as much of your system gets a break as the majority of your small intestine will still be in use and you’ll require 2 surgeries which will then need to heal. The gut takes a very long time in my experience to repair so my advice to anyone trying to heal themselves is to monitor a change over a 6month period.

From this point I added food back in to my diet as if I was a new born baby one item every few days keeping a diary of my symptoms and removing any that caused issues. I also continued using the shakes for a further 6 months to a year slowly reducing the amount. Took around 18months to eat a full diet again. I found Gluten, brewers yeast and eggs can cause me issues. Today I don’t eat gluten at all and eggs sparingly.

This was a huge undertaking for me as I had to make every single thing I ate from scratch for a very long time. Was it worth it? 100% I am completely symptom free, and I mean completely for the past 5 years. I no longer have to carry spare pants everywhere I go and having learnt to cook which this process basically forces you to do has improved my life on its own massively as an added bonus. I was discharged by the doctor just a few months ago so no longer even need to go for check ups.

Hope this helps someone.