Response To Patti I'm 13 Nearly 14 Now, I Hate My Diabetes! It Makes Me Feel Different From My Friends And As If I Constantly Need To Be Watched Over It When Im Out. I Used To Search For Hours On The Internet For Ways To Make My Diabetes Easier. I Asked My Doctor About The Pump But He Said He Wouldn't Allow It Although Im Not Sure Why As I Thought It Was A Good Idea.

And My School Does Have A Counsellor But She Is Very Busy And When I Had A Meeting With Her Once I Missed It. My Head Of Year Says I Can Speak To Her So Sometimes I Do. But It's Hard To Find Someone I Trust Enough To Speak Freely About My Thoughts And Feelings.
Except From My Best Mate.

Hi all

i was diagnosed with Diabulimia early last year. I found it all started because i was in a very controlling relationship and my diabetes was the only thing i could control myself. I always hated being bigger than all my friends and i knew that not taking my insulin would make my weight drop dramatically. I've been in and out of hospital more than 20 times in the past 2 years with Diabetic Ketoacidosis, the most recent was 6 weeks ago. It was odd for me, i knew that by not taking my insulin could result in my organs and limbs deteriorating but i didnt care, a family friend had his leg amputated due to neglecting his diabetes but i wasnt scared in the slightest. The thing that terrified me was the last time i was admitted, i was in bed not feeling too good, then all of a sudden vomitting, not just normal vomit but a black liquid, which i was later told was the lining of my stomach. I carried on vomitting for an hour or so until my mother came home to find me with my head down the toilet. As she does, she was worried so phoned for advice, telling the lady at NHS direct what was wrong, she was told to phone an ambulance. When they arrived i was unconscious on the bathroom floor, when i arrived at A&E they couldnt get any blood from my finger to check my BMs. They said this was cos my body was shutting down due to having no insulin intake for so long. I was basically hours away from death and that out the s*!*s up me. what was i doing?? i was killing myself because i had an issue with my body, i was upsetting my family. i couldnt do it.

anyway, after i came round and they jabbed me with insulin and put on a ward, a nice gentleman came to see me from the metal health team, he advised me to see him on a weekly basis. sooooo, i am i admitted i have a really big problem with my diabetes, im the only one in my family with it and i always think 'why me, what did i do to deserve this', i was diagnosed at 15 and i got on with it, but now (just turned 22 last week) im finding it a lot harder to cope with. but i'm proud of myself, been out of hospital for 6 weeks, and since then i've taken all my injections (minimum of 4, sometimes 7) every day i still see my psycho-therapist every week and im proud. i never thought i'd get over this, but im trying my hardest. i was a podgy 13stone sze 16, and i went to a slim 8stone 12 size 8, i thought i looked great, but looking back i was ill, my face was gaunt, my collar bone stuck out, i had the body of a kid. i've also had to cope with the fact of my hair thinning out, i used to have lovely thick hair, but cos ive neglected myself its so thin, my 3 yr old neice has thicker hair, and ive lost my boobs lol one thing i never thught would happen is being happy with my. since taking all my injections for 6 weeks i thought id pile the weight back on, but my weight has gone up to 10stone and im a healthy size 10, my bmi is 21 which is normal.

i guess what im trying to say is, if you do suffer with this, you can get over it, but the first step is you need to accept you have a problem and ask for help, thats your problem halved by 4 little words 'i need help'

Sarah Loo
xx

Sarah, reading your post has made me cry!  Be proud of yourself for turning things around!

Wow Sarah - I just want to give you a big {{{{{HUG}}}}} and thank you so much for your post.

Well done for turning you life around - you must be soooooo proud

CONGRATULATIONS

Ditto that

You described your DKA experience very well and if just one person with diabulimia reads it (even as a lurker, cause we know how hard it is to get confidence to join forums and post when you are feeling very bad about things) and changes their mind on the basis of it then you will have done more good than you know

In saying that, I live in fear of DKA so maybe you are just contributing to my growing phobia
Seriously though, as I said in another post, takes a lot of guts to turn things around (and so quickly too) and to admit all this

Keep being kind to yourself x

Well as with most problems especially of a more mental nature the biggest part of the battle is a) Realising you have a problem and b) Wanting to do something to fix that problem. Hope you sort it out

Hi Sarah_loo, Welcome to DSF, thank you for sharing your very moving, inspiration story, congratulations on your turn around, heres hoping you continue to thrive, don't ya just love it when you hear a success story.  

thanks just thought it might give some people who have problem the strength to do it themselves and to know that they can actually do it ive been through alot the past 2 years and i wouldnt wish that on anybody, im just thankful my body hasnt suffered from the damage i did, but because of what ive done i know ill have problems later on in my life. but im trying my best to improve my lifestyle now to try and prevent the damage, only time will tell

Sarah x

Wow, lady!!!  Deepest Respect (in Ali G voice)!!!

- I'm now waiting - actually with excitement - for your next result !!!!

fingers crossed single figures

My name is Jacqueline Allan and I am the Director of http://www.DWED.org.uk (Diabetics with Eating Disorders), a not for profit organisation working towards charitable status. Recent studies show that not only are female* type one diabetics at twice the risk of developing anorexia or bulimia, as many as 40% of 15 – 30 year olds regularly manipulate or omit insulin in order to lose weight (commonly dubbed diabulimia). This practice can have devastating consequences such as organ failure, infertility, blindness and in the worst cases, death. Despite this it is not officially diagnosable and there are no current guidelines for the NHS on how to deal with the issue.
DWED has two main purposes. Firstly we offer support to those affected by deliberate omission and their carers. We try to find suitable services in their areas and this information will be posted on the website so that those who are ready to seek help know where to go to get it. DWED also supports suffers and their carers personally through emails, phonecalls, where possible home visits and through a variety of social networking sites and from tudiabetes to facebook (public and private). There are 500 members across groups. All of the sites are completely pro recovery with no pictures of talk of numbers allowed.
The second purpose of the organisation is to campaign for better (in some cases any) facilities for Diabetics with eating disorders. DWED is in support of Deliberate Insulin Manipulation/ Omission being recognised as a Mental Disorder. We have a number of members who have been simply deemed as non - compliant and left at that. This is not only unsatisfactory it is potentially lethal.  As something that is not officially diagnosable deliberate insulin manipulation/ omission tends to cause a confused reaction among professionals. To be honest when this project began the core aim was to raise awareness within the health service. The overwhelming reaction from all the PCTs contacted is that nearly everyone is aware of it but no one knows what to do about it; there is no ‘strategy’, no guidelines and little UK based research.   As such DWED is putting together a Professional Advisory Board composed of Eating Disorder and Diabetes Professionals in the hope that a dialogue will open and a multi – disciplinarian, patient centred approach will be promoted.
I hope that I have explained adequately what Diabetics with Eating Disorders does and that this is something you are interested in supporting.  If you have any questions or comments then please get back to me via the website or through jacq@dwed.org.uk

*Although less common it can also be found in type 1 males.