Only tangentially relevant, but I’ve dealt with mouth and gut microbiome issues my whole life, the latter exacerbated by a strong antibiotic I had to go on in mid 2017 for a super resistant staph infection. L Reuteri supplementation and “L Reuteri yogurt” was one of those alternative methods I read about (though I’m skeptical that reuteri is the dominant strain in this “yogurt”)

Doctors don’t really care to look at these kinds of issues. It took years of suffering and autoimmune issues (particularly muscle spasms and joint pain) alongside gut problems before I demanded a gastroenterologist test me for H pylori and SIBO: I was positive for both.

H pylori was a painful treatment process, but I cleared it after one round of quad therapy. SIBO on the other hand, a condition I think we hardly understand, has been hard to deal with. Many rounds of rifaximin with very minimal relief and no real answer as to how to deal with it.

Doctors are hesitant to help, so I’ve resulted to a lot of personal experimentation to deal with it. The only thing that ever worked (and it’s just anecdata so unsure) was sulbultiamine supplementation, but I can’t actually get that anymore and normal thiamine doesn’t help.

This is all to say: I think microbiome is supremely important to health, very few things seem to really impact it, and doctors are hesitant to deal with these systems at all. I’m sure FMTs will become much more popular for a variety of conditions, but it seems like it’s a real risk where not only might someone else’s microbiome not be a fit for your physiology, but you could be inheriting a variety of risks the donor is susceptible to but you are not.

I am not a doctor and much of what I’m saying may be wrong. Don’t quote me please.