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.
Then one day at a camp for diabetic teens, she heard counsellors chew out two girls for practising "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 counsellor 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 diabetes. Instead, she focused on this: Skipping insulin equals weight loss. For the next 17 years, diabulimia was her compulsion.
"I took just enough insulin to function," said Thill, now 34, of Magnolia, N.J., who had at the time put on 20 pounds.
Today, she worries about the long-term damage that may have come from her weight obsession. At 25, a blood vessel hemorrhage in her eye required surgery. At 28, doctors told her she had damaged kidneys.
"I'm fearful for the future," Thill said. "I feel very strongly that had I taken care of myself, I could have lived as long as anyone without diabetes. I don't think that's going to happen now."
Diabulimia is usually practised by teenage girls and young women, and it may be growing more common as the secret is exchanged on internet bulletin boards for diabetics and those with eating disorders.
One expert who has studied the phenomenon estimates that 450,000 Type 1 diabetic women in the United States — one-third of the total — have skipped or shortchanged their insulin to lose weight and are risking a coma and an early death.
"People who do this behaviour wind up with severe diabetic complications much earlier," said Ann Goebel-Fabbri, a clinical psychologist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
The American Diabetes Association has long known about insulin omission as a tactic to lose weight. But "diabulimia" is a term that has only cropped up in recent years and is not a recognized medical condition, said Barbara Anderson, a pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston...
Then one day at a camp for diabetic teens, she heard counsellors chew out two girls for practising "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 counsellor 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 diabetes. Instead, she focused on this: Skipping insulin equals weight loss. For the next 17 years, diabulimia was her compulsion.
"I took just enough insulin to function," said Thill, now 34, of Magnolia, N.J., who had at the time put on 20 pounds.
Today, she worries about the long-term damage that may have come from her weight obsession. At 25, a blood vessel hemorrhage in her eye required surgery. At 28, doctors told her she had damaged kidneys.
"I'm fearful for the future," Thill said. "I feel very strongly that had I taken care of myself, I could have lived as long as anyone without diabetes. I don't think that's going to happen now."
Diabulimia is usually practised by teenage girls and young women, and it may be growing more common as the secret is exchanged on internet bulletin boards for diabetics and those with eating disorders.
One expert who has studied the phenomenon estimates that 450,000 Type 1 diabetic women in the United States — one-third of the total — have skipped or shortchanged their insulin to lose weight and are risking a coma and an early death.
"People who do this behaviour wind up with severe diabetic complications much earlier," said Ann Goebel-Fabbri, a clinical psychologist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
The American Diabetes Association has long known about insulin omission as a tactic to lose weight. But "diabulimia" is a term that has only cropped up in recent years and is not a recognized medical condition, said Barbara Anderson, a pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston...
