Gut Instinct - Jane Dudley

"I think we have a lot of hang ups about poo. But I think my story proves that you shouldn't poo-poo poo. In a very real way, the number twos cured my blues!" - Jane Dudley. 

Jane Dudley was a happy child but after she was sexually abused by a relative in her teens she became depressed and eventually developed bipolar one disorder. She lost 18 years of her life to the condition, suffering crippling depression and manic periods that saw her hospitalised.   

One day while gardening she found a frog, which led her to ecologist Alex Dudley. "A woman with a frog will always get my attention," he jokes. The pair developed an instant bond, but Alex was deeply concerned about Jane's mental health and desperately wanted to help.   

After researching how the gut microbiome influences the brain, he came up with a radical suggestion: a faecal transplant – transferring his poo to Jane's gut via enemas.   

"I was like, you want to do what? That is gross. No thank you," Jane tells Australian Story. "But then I had a few months of thinking about it and realising that I had to try something."  

Faecal transplants have not been approved for use in mental illness but within three months, Jane's life was transformed, and she has now been free of depressive and manic symptoms for eight years.   

Since Jane started telling her story, there has been enormous interest from medical and mental health experts.   

"This is such a paradigm change in terms of how to manage bipolar disorder," renowned psychiatrist Professor Gordon Parker tells Australian Story. "It gives us the opportunity for a completely new approach focusing on the gut microbiome. This is a story that needs to be told. A condition that has been positioned as incurable may potentially be curable."  

There are now calls for large-scale clinical trials to prove that it is an effective treatment for depression. But there is one message everyone involved wants to stress: this is not a procedure anyone should do at home without medical supervision as faecal transplants can lead to the transmission of serious illnesses and disorders.   

"The ethical dilemma I have about continuing to share my story is that I run the risk of promoting a therapy that is potentially extremely dangerous if the donors are not properly screened," Jane says.   

Producer: Vanessa Gorman.