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Asked by Freya to Greg, Jen, Laura, Mobeen, Paul on 15 Mar 2016.
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Greg Melia answered on 15 Mar 2016:
There are all sorts of treatments for all sorts of diseases. Some are more unusual than others! Doctors monitor the unusual treatments to see whether they make people better, and publish the results in places like The Lancet or the British Medical Journal. If treatments are shown to be effective, they are reviewed by NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and made available on the NHS, at which point they hopefully become more widely used!
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Paul O'Mahoney answered on 15 Mar 2016:
This is probably one of the weirder ones I have heard, and I guarantee you it is true! There is an infection that can be caused by a bacterium called ‘clostridium difficile’, or C diff. It affects your bowels and can cause some nasty effects. Usually this can be treated by antibiotics, but there is another way… poo transplants! It’s correct term is Fecal Microbiota Transplant, but I prefer calling it a poo transplant. Basically, a donor poo is processed and inserted you-know-where to help repopulate the good bacteria in your colon to fight of the infection. Isn’t science amazing!!
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Laura Haworth answered on 15 Mar 2016:
wow not heard of the poo transplant one before Paul! One treatment for people with nasty ulcers on their legs is maggots- yuck I know!! They leave them for a number of weeks as they have been proven to really help with helping the ulcers heal.
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Jen Lowe answered on 16 Mar 2016:
Maggots are used to heal wounds (by eating dead tissue).
Swallowing a radioactive pill to treat thyroid cancer.
Radioactive seeds implanted for prostate cancer.
Proton therapy is currently unusual in the UK (only eyes in one centre) but there will soon be other centres open so NHS patients won’t need to travel to Europe or USA.
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