I'm just wondering since I hate my j-pouch so much and keep thinking how badly I wish I could get a colon transplant, even though for the time being nobody will do it. What does your body go through when it begins rejecting a colon from a transplant? The reason I wonder is because back in my ulcerative colitis days, it felt like my body was rejecting my colon at the time. And getting rid of it is what finally brought an end to my colitis symptoms. Which is why I wonder what my body would be going through if I tried hooking up a colon to it once again? Would I go through what I did with ulcerative colitis or would my symptoms be different this time? Mind you if I wasn't hospitalized at the time, ulcerative colitis would have literally killed me.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
The autoimmune disorder that caused your first bout with UC hasn't gone away, so I am not sure why you would want to have a colon transplant so you can experience UC all over again (assuming your body does not reject the transplant, which is a totally different initial medical hurdle).
I would suspect that if you have UC, you would not even be a candidate. Why would they transplant an organ into a body genetically programmed to attack it? This is especially true for an organ that is not strictly necessary. You can always have an ostomy if the j-pouch does not work, without it threatening your life.
Small bowel transplant is another story, since the small bowel is necessary to sustain life. TPN often causes life threatening complications over time.
As for the symptoms of tissue rejection? It all depends on whether it is acute or chronic. It could kill you if acute and severe. More mild rejection will make you sick and the organ would lose its function.
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlin...y/article/000815.htm
Jan 
Maybe they would do a transplant for the same reason they do transplants on people with PSC. That autoimmune as well and they do transplants all the time. Sometimes it works, some times, not ....
The difference is that you cannot live without a functioning liver. The same is not true for the colon.
Jan
Yes, if your liver fails and you can't get another one, it's all over, whereas colons are quite expendable.
I read that liver transplants have a 5 year survival rate of about 78%, which isn't terribly high. Among the 22% who didn't make it 5 years was Baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle, who made it only a few months with his transplanted liver.