SAN ANTONIO – Clostridium difficile, also known as C. diff, is a gut bacteria that sickens more than 400,000 Americans each year, killing nearly 14,000.
The deadly bacteria is easily transmitted in hospitals and nursing homes.
Recommended Videos
Now a new treatment is offering relief to patients like Lynda.
Last December, she had her teeth removed and was treated with antibiotics. She's been battling C. diff ever since.
"I didn't have a life anymore," said Lynda. "I was really considering how to just end it all. I mean it wasn't a life. There was no point "
The illness causes intense bouts of infectious diarrhea.
Lynda is about to undergo a fecal microbiota transplant.
Dr. Herbert Dupont will take the good bacteria in a donor's feces and replace the bad bacteria in Lynda's gut using a colonoscopy.
Within days she should feel better.
"This is a miraculous therapy. There is nothing like this in medicine," said Dupont.
The new treatment may soon be available in pill form.