Kristy Wildy did not know she could get paid for donating her poo, but it was an unexpected bonus for the 55-year-old who has been contributing for the past 12 months.

Key points: A lab in Adelaide is paying people to donate their stool

A lab in Adelaide is paying people to donate their stool It is used for faecal transplants around Australia

It is used for faecal transplants around Australia The treatment is particularly useful for people with gut infections

Ms Wildy has been a blood donor for years, and she said donating her stool was a no-brainer.

"I wanted to become a donor because I thought I was a fairly healthy person and I would have something to contribute," she said.

Ms Wildy donates about three or four times a week and said the process was quick and easy.

She said the $25-per-donation payment was a bonus and could be lucrative, depending on donation rates.

"I had no idea that I would get paid — that wasn't even in my mind, it was just kind of an unexpected bonus," she said.

"The fact that it works so well, it's so quick and the effects are so long-lasting, I thought, 'Well, maybe I can help'."

Ms Wildy goes to BiomeBank, Australia's first public stool bank at their newly expanded lab in the inner-western Adelaide suburb of Thebarton to donate her stool.

BiomeBank co-founders and gastroenterologists Sam Costello and Rob Bryant. ( Supplied: BiomeBank )

BiomeBank is funded by the Hospital Research Foundation and processes and stores healthy stool so it can be distributed to hospitals around the country and overseas.

The stool is used for patients requiring faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), a breakthrough treatment with a 90 per cent cure rate of chronic bowel disorders.

BiomeBank's founders, doctors Sam Costello and Rob Byrant, want to increase accessibility to the lifesaving treatment and are encouraging more people to donate their poo.

A poo transplant saved my life

Jo O'Brien's life was turned upside down in 2018 when she contracted a Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection.

It was brought on by a spate of illnesses which required high doses of antibiotics that wiped out her good gut bacteria.

"Over the course of two years, I had in between 30 and 40 lots of antibiotics. I had a really bad couple of years, I had pneumonia, chest infections and a tooth abscess," Ms O'Brien said.

"So, to treat myself, I went to Bali on a yoga retreat … but unfortunately, that's where I contracted C. diff … I was weak and had no good stomach bacteria left."

Jo O'Brien says FMT saved her life. ( ABC News: Shuba Krishnan )

Leading a normal life became nearly impossible for Ms O'Brien.

"I would go to the bathroom between 12 to 15 times during the day, and at night, maybe five or six times," she said.

Ms O'Brien said she only ate twice a week to avoid using the bathroom, and she slept in a separate bed to her husband, on a picnic blanket with a rubber back.

"I would sit on a towel in the car and had an emergency pack of clothes in the car, with wet wipes, paper towels, everything," she said.

What is a faecal transplant? Faecal matter, or stool, is collected from a donor

Faecal matter, or stool, is collected from a donor The matter is mixed with a solution, strained, and placed in a patient by colonoscopy, endoscopy or enema

The matter is mixed with a solution, strained, and placed in a patient by colonoscopy, endoscopy or enema The aim is to replace the recipient's "bad" gut bacteria with the donor's "good" bacteria

The aim is to replace the recipient's "bad" gut bacteria with the donor's "good" bacteria The procedure is commonly used to treat complications from antibiotic therapy

The procedure is commonly used to treat complications from antibiotic therapy It is being used experimentally for conditions like IBS, MS, autism and Parkinson's

It is being used experimentally for conditions like IBS, MS, autism and Parkinson's Its use has been documented in 4th Century China

Ms O'Brien became reclusive and her mental health deteriorated.

"I used to exercise a lot, but I couldn't even go for a walk, because I had to chart where the toilets were," she said.

"I became a homebody … my socialisation was down … I didn't really see many people."

Ms O'Brien said her life was so unbearable, that when her gastroenterologist, Dr Costello, suggested a poo transplant, she did not think twice.

"I would do anything to get better," she said.

"People tend to laugh when you say things like, 'Oh, I'm having a poo transplant', but for me, it was the very last resort."

Ms O'Brien said three days after having the FMT she felt normal again.

"I went to the pub for tea … and I didn't take a change of clothes," she said.

"Essentially, the bottom line is it saved my life and I'm just extremely grateful to have had it."

BiomeBank workers processing a stool in a lab. ( ABC News: Shuba Krishnan )

Donating your poo

Dr Costello said prospective donors must undergo a rigorous screening process before they are cleared to donate.

"Donors typically have to be healthy people, without any active medical problems, then undergo a multistage assessment. That includes a medical history, physical examination, and then they have a blood and a stool test," he said.

"If they pass all of those screens, then they can become a donor and we encourage people to donate regularly over a period of time, so we can collect an adequate amount of stool from them."

Once stool was donated, it was then processed by mixing it with saline and glycerine.

This process takes place in conditions which replicate the bowel to ensure the best healthy gut bacteria remain viable.

The processed stool is then stored in a minus 80-degree Celsius freezer until needed by a hospital.

It can then be transported by a dry-ice courier and thawed out and used as required.

Why do people need my poo?

Dr Costello and Dr Bryant said there was a growing need for safe and effective FMTs across Australia.

FMTs are mainly used to treat people suffering from C. diff infections, a condition becoming more common due to the widespread use of antibiotics.

"Antibiotics strip the bugs in your bowels such that it creates a niche where C. diff can proliferate and expand and with that expansion it becomes a pathogen and makes people sick," Dr Bryant said.

BiomeBank is calling on the public to donate poo in order to provide faecal microbiota transplantation. ( ABC News: Shuba Krishnan )

Patients with C. diff suffer from bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain and fever.

It is life-threatening for a proportion of patients and can lead to intensive care admissions, as well as colectomy, which is the removal of the large bowel for those who are most severely affected.

Dr Costello and Dr Byrant said with C. diff infections on the rise, they expected to supply about 500 treatments per year Australia-wide.

"We currently treat about 30 patients a year in South Australia alone," Dr Costello said

While FMT was a relatively new procedure in Western medicine, Dr Costello said it had been practised in ancient cultures for years.

"There reports of faecal transplants being used in Chinese medicine, the Bedouin people in North Africa have a long history of using faecal transplant to treat dysentery," he said.

"It has really come to prominence in the last 10 years in the Western literature."