Day 190 Happy New Year

I did get 4th in my age group.

So I am more than six months into my experiment and all I can say is that it has exceeded my wildest expectations. Improved mood, decreased inflammation, and positive changes in my metabolic performance. It has been a home run up to this point. The burning question moving into 2016 is how repeatable is my experience.

We have expanded the beta tester pool by three. One client did not show any improvement in a severe psoriasis case but that might have been a function of improper dosing (too little). One inflammatory bowel case has shown no improvement so far but is still working up to a therapeutic dose. One multiple sclerosis case has shown some improvement (which is huge considering how non-responsive he has been to any therapy). Still lots to learn but I think we are zeroing in on a dose and schedule. I am very encouraged that all have not experienced any negative side-effects with the exception of some sweating and loose bowel movements.

Moving forward we are looking to experiment with lyophilized material and further expand the Beta testing. The donor is coming up for a race in January and that should provide us with the opportunity to refill the ultra-freezer. This will also provide an opportunity to compare fresh material with the doses we already have prepared (about 6 months old). So much still left to learn.

 

New Year Day run. Five Peak Challenge.

Day 174 Tarahumara Garin

1st place overall Dirty December Half Marathon Fun Run.

New uBiome data is in. Confusing since my bacteriodetes to firmicutes is worse than baseline but my diversity is up 6% so there is some change in the right direction. I went from 74% in biodiversity to 80%. My donor is in the 99% so that is moving in the right direction. My autoimmune paleo diet is probably too meat rich to support my donors biodiversity if this data is correct. Still running well so I will experiment with improving diet.

Baseline

Five months of FMC

Donor uBiome biodiversity data

Day 166 OTHTC 30K - Running fast

OTHTC 30K went well and managed 4th in age group (17th overall). My goal was to run 18 miles in 2:40 minutes and my right foot hit the ground as my mile tracker called out 18.01 at 2:40:04. I was very happy with that since there was decent elevation change and sandy single track. Was coming in fast but couldn't catch 3rd place. Missed the podium by 20 seconds (calves were cramping). Would be nice to catch a medal in one of these smaller fields but I am just grateful to be healthy. Looking forward to another year of training and getting a sub 4 hour trail marathon in my back pocket.

Hard to know what to make of this since this was a fast time for me. Inflammation is certainly up from where it was but metabolically doing well. Weight is 171 lbs. Sort of a mixed bag a couple weeks from the last capsule so I will be patient and see how things settle in. uBiome results still not back. Shocker! /s.
 

Day 165 Regressing

Well everything is moving back to my pre-FMC level. Still running well but the pains and aches are returning and my bowel movements are brown. Bit of a mixed bag though as anxiety is still low but inflammation is coming back up. Off to run a 30K this weekend will see how it goes.

Day 158 Taking a Break

I am behind on my blog posting. Last week I reached a point where the FMC were not feeling right. Having taken them for five months I seemed to have reached a fitness optima for me. So I took the last week off from the capsules and have had a fantastic week. Not sure how long I can hold the gains but it feels like whatever I have restored has "taken" and adding more is not resulting in any noticeable gains in inflammation, metabolic performance, food cravings or anxiety reduction.

170 lbs. post Thanksgiving

I ran just a tick under 70 miles last week which is enormous increase from where I was five months ago. This was my last nine mile run from this week. At the end of a long mileage week I knocked out my fastest 15K in a more than a decade (maybe more I don't have any training records past my early twenties and middle-age me is not as fast as twenty-something me).

My inflammation looks really good. I feel good and plan to see how long I can keep improving with just diet and lifestyle. My plan is to run as much as my body will let me and work on getting the last of the sugar and caffeine out of my diet.  If I feel any increase in anxiety or notice my old injuries starting to return I will add the capsules back in, but for now I am just going to see how things go. The last time I did this I made it two weeks before I started slipping back (this summer at Mt. Whitney). Hopefully, this will last longer this time.

Day 147 Golden Poop

Inflammation is almost back down to the best point so far in this experiment. I would say about 70% to where I was after the Kodiak run (hard to quantify). Learned this week that I now will break out with chest acne if I take too much iodine. Kelp supplement caused me quite a bit of concern when I noticed the pimples on my chest. I was very worried that I had started to react to the fecal capsules. I guess it is a testament to how much I have come to appreciate this new level of health. I do not want to go back to my baseline prior to the FMC.

New sample going out today to uBiome. Hopefully the promised two week turnaround will give me some useful data.  A much simpler test, and one we have replicated in the Beta testers, is the color of my poop is the same color as my donor - golden brown. Not a fancy assay but definitely a change towards the donor material. The Beta testers have all reported the same.

Beta tester with diabetes type II has not seen any weight loss but glucose is controlled with diet and the use of FMC. He has moved to a low sugar diet but is still not exercising which may be limiting his benefits. Our donor is extremely metabolically active and there is only so much his bacteria can do if you do not give it the proper inputs to thrive. I certainly have noticed when I am eating clean and running long that the therapy is at its best.

Day 137

Yesterday morning (Friday) single loose bowel movement. Good run with a little gut issues (gas). Overall things are improving.

This morning (Saturday) solid bowel movement. Inflammation looking good. No sugar cravings. Feels like things are coming into a balance.

Day 136 Enteric Coated Capsules? Never again!

Interesting day yesterday. Woke up and weighted myself 167.2 lbs. Had breakfast and then diarrhea all morning (X3). Previous days had been good with solid bowel movements and improving inflammation, reduction in sugar cravings, and medium good runs. That afternoon finally got the urge for bonus miles back. That is when I go out for a certain distance and end up running extra miles because I feel so good. In this case, 5.7 miles turned into 11.2 miles. No stomach issues and excellent recovery during and following the run.

Either I have some cyclic infection like giardia (unlikely), which I will have to get tested for, or the enteric coated capsules caused some dysbiosis that was finally purged yesterday (die off???). I am highly suspicious of the latter and am a little surprised to have not heard more about this in the FMT community. If there is nothing else going on I would highly recommend not using top down capsules with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). The stomach acid is an important component of introducing bacteria into the small intestines.  In fact, I bet there is a link between long term PPIs use and weight gain/obesity.
 
I look at how I felt on my 15 mile run at Javelina (10/31/15) and how I felt yesterday and it is just a world of difference. Hips hurt at mile 10 at Javelina running 13:43 pace and nothing hurt running 8:43 for 11.2 miles yesterday. In fact, I could have done another 5.7 mile loop but I had to get back to work. If I am correct something happens in the small intestines that causes increased inflammation, sugar cravings and dulls my running impulses. My guess is enteric is too dirty for my small intestines and the immune system gets overstimulated.

I am becoming confident that there is nothing wrong with the donor material and that it takes a week or so for me to get the bad bacteria out of my small intestines using my FMCapsules. Even though I was taking the regular capsules for three day prior to Javelina run there was still inflammation. I am of the opinion that was a residual effect from the enteric capsules. Will keep working with the normal capsules and see how things go.

In other news, the beta tester is finally losing weight and reporting decreased anxiety. Donor coming next week to provide more samples.

Javelina, AZ. Pacing a Tarahumara runner.

Bonus mile impulse returning. :)

Day 128 Thoughts on Enteric Coated Capsules

Not a fan. The ten days of enteric coated capsules was not good for me. I noticed a lot of fatigue mid-day when taking the capsules in the morning. My inflammation was coming back and was particularly noticeable after my fast runs. Achilles was starting to bother me and calf pain I have not had the last four months returned.  Worst of all I have a new site of rosacea at the boundary of my lips at my philtrum. This is totally new and while not bad is very concerning for me. We have a stomach filled with acid for a reason and part of that reason is very likely to keep acid sensitive bacteria from colonizing the small intestines. 

I wanted to try the enteric coating because clinicians with far more experience than myself have reported positive effects, but for whatever reason it is not for me. I have started using the old capsules and will be pacing a tarahumara runner this weekend at a race in Arizona. We will see if I can get back on track.

Interestingly, still running well but I feel like I have slowed in my progress. Sugar cravings were also returning. In total feel like this experiment was a failure and I would have been better just staying with the original capsules. Could be possible that the material is approaching an expiration period in the ultra freezer or that I am becoming insensitive to the effects. Time will tell. Ordered another uBiome kit and will test to see what the assay is looking like after four months +.

 

This is a fast training run for me but was followed by old familiar aches and pains.

Regular capsules. I choose red because I am a fan of the matrix and the enteric coated capsules were blue.
"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more." - Morpheus

Day 121 Four Months

Four months and I took some pre and post FMC psoriasis pictures. The pre is typical of the baseline I had established hosting hookworms for the last nine years. This is a 90% improvement of my elbow plaques hosting a population of hookworms. As many long term responders will attest it can be harder to get the last 10% than the first 90%. It is not bad, all things considered, and is hard to see so I circled the sites of inflammation.

Pre FMC. I have adjusted the contrast and saturation to enhance the visibility of the inflammation.

Post FMC

If you are curious this is where I was prior to the hookworm.
 

Before the hookworms.