Diabulimia

The practice of stopping insulin to lose weight:

Like many teenage girls, Lee Ann Thill was obsessed with her appearance. A diabetic, she was already suffering from bulimia — forcing herself to throw up to lose weight. But it wasn’t enough, and she’d recently put on 20 pounds.

Then one day at a camp for diabetic teens, she heard counselors chew out two girls for practicing “diabulimia” — not taking their insulin so they could lose weight, one of the consequences of uncontrolled diabetes.

Don’t you realize you could die if you skip your insulin? the counselor scolded. Don’t you know you could fall into a coma or damage your kidneys or your eyes?

But that’s not what registered with Thill, who has Type 1, or juvenile diabetes. Instead, she focused on this: Skipping insulin equals weight loss. For the next 17 years, diabulimia was her compulsion.

(via Clinical Cases)

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Tagged as: diabetes