Dia-bulimia .. Skipping Insulin to Lose Weight ( Here's a new one, folks)

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=81960

Diabulimics -- Skipping Insulin to Lose Weight

By Al Tompkins (more by author)

Normally, most of what you eat is broken down into glucose, the sugar that fuels your cells. Insulin, meanwhile, is the hormone that unlocks cells and allows them to take glucose in and either burn it or store it as fat. But in as many as 1.4 million Americans diagnosed with the autoimmune disease known as type 1 diabetes, this process has gone haywire.

The act of taking less insulin to lose weight is happening far more often than you might think, according to Self:

Because diabetics have the unique power to control the amount of insulin they give themselves, they have a tempting -- and dangerously easy -- way to shed these unwanted pounds. One in three type 1 diabetics reported skipping or underdosing their insulin to lose weight, according to a study by researchers at the University of Toronto. "A lot of women avoid intensive insulin management, even though it has tremendous health benefits," says Ann Goebel-Fabbri, Ph.D., a psychologist at Joslin Diabetes Center and Behavioral and Mental Health Unit in Boston. "This behavior is like playing Russian roulette with your health. It's almost like they're turning back the clock to a point in history when we didn't know that the consequences of diabetes were preventable."

The problem is widespread enough that physicians now see insulin underdosing as a form of purging, making it a close cousin of the eating disorder bulimia. Some doctors even call it "diabulimia." Unlike disorders such as anorexia, in which a person severely restricts calories, a person omitting insulin can eat whatever she wants. Pizza, beer, ice cream -- none of it can be processed by the body. Nor do diabulimics have to go through the pain of self-induced vomiting. All they have to do is skip shots and watch their weight spiral drastically down, calories purged from the body in a sugar-filled stream of urine.

Most people outside the diabetic community have never heard of diabulimia, and it's not in the DSM-IV, the text outlining recognized mental illnesses. But over the past few years, the term has found its way online, where women have picked it up, finally able to give a name to their disorder.

:eyes:

and feel like shit

You truly can't help some people. :mad:

:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

Do you think anyone with an eating disorder is thinking clearly? Do you think they just want to be sick and die or do you think - just maybe - they have disordered thinking and need some compassion and help from their fellow human beings?

???

Frankly, I'd rather help those who are genuinely starving, living in areas of drought and/or civil war and no food, than somebody who has every resource at her fingertips and prefers to kill herself for vanity.

They just need to get over themselves! :sarcasm:

with schizophrenia, I don't appreciate your self-righteous indignation. My understanding of mental illness is painfully profound.

these people are undeserving of help?

Be it anorexia, bulemia, or what's described in this thread, this sort of thing is treatable. People with these disorders can stop these behaviors, if they get the right treatments. They can lead normal lives. Doctors have been studying and treating these illnesses for years.

But I guess it isn't a "real" illness, so they don't "deserve" treatment - it's all in their heads, right?

ima_sinnic, silverojo, you can both die in a fire and go to hell. You're clearly completely fucking clueless on mental illness. No. Seriously. Fuck off.

People in this country are so nasty about the mentally ill.

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a counselor, I'm not qualified to be anybody at all in the field of mental health or social work, so what do you want from me?
If they are mentally ill and the treatment is available, who's stopping them from getting it?

Yeah, I'm "clueless," so curse me already. If the help is available the eating-disorder-disabled are free to get it, I won't stand in their way. IF I knew someone with this disorder and IF I knew where he or she could get help, I would refer that person. Feel better?

Or, maybe there do, eh?

I'm a male diabetic (type 2) and I dropped almost 70 pounds in a matter of days from uncontrolled diabetes before finally being diagnosed.

That can be a temptation for any person that has struggled with a weight problem especially as the terrible effects this disease can have on one's health aren't all seen immediately.

However, as for myself, if I ever manage to lose that kind of weight again I prefer to have my health and eyesight intact so I can actually see the results and stick around long enough to enjoy them.

becoming diabetic...that only if they were thin, thin, thin they wouldn't be diabetic.

Yet another result of our culture's obsession with perfection and thinness.

are Type 1's and that's not a message they often hear. It's a little more complicated than that.

I could go into some details but I'm not a doctor and it would probably be inappropriate.

You're thinking of Type 2. Those who rely on insulin injections to live have had the islet cells in their pancreas destroyed by an autoimmune condition, not by overeating.

I thought you posted "DIAL-A-Bulemic" and I was going to post about how I missed my old girl friend, but not THAT much... :)

:rofl:

Just don't let my Wife See this post! :)

Backatcha, 'cept you Rock more! Love the latest graphic, always look forward to your threads, like Christmas :)

:hi:

Nuts. Of course, the effects don't really show up when they are young, but are cumulative. I've been pretty compliant and am having several secondary complications--I hate to see what these girls are experiencing right now.

:scared:

To have to deal with diabetes...and an eating disorder.

In the past when my diabetes wasn't under such good control, I noticed the unexplained weight loss, and it scared me.

I just started on an insulin pump last month (I'm not type 1, was diagnosed as type 2 a few years ago but oral agents haven't worked for me). I haven't shed any pounds, but I feel a lot better and my glucose readings have been more stable, a little high still but I don't see 200s as much as I had before.

a great new DU group I don't think there is one at least I didn't see it.We need all the help and support we can find especially when just starting out.

It's been recognized for a long time. I wrote about it as a medical journalist back in the late '80s.

ketoacidosis line--yeesh. I'm IDD for nearly my entire life and couldn't imagine doing this--a 200 reading and I feel pretty awful. One of these women would aim for 220+--just enough to keep her from immediate damage but not quite DKA, either.

I'd be interested in reading some of your writing on this. Could you point me in the right direction (feel free to PM if you'd prefer).

Thanks.

I'll see if I can find any of it but the publication is long defunct. (NOT my fault! I SWEAR! ;) )

I'll see if I can dig any of it up. It may be in a box in my basement. I think I've lived a couple of lives (and several diagnoses) since then! And at least 4 hard drive crashes (I used to have a scsi that required a well-placed, swift kick to boot!)

The other issue of the time was an increase of anorexia among Type 1 diabetics.

"Patient 0" became comatose after having an insulin reaction alone at home and having no stores of sugar in her liver or muscles.

"Diabetic anorexia" became a new term because patients did not present as emaciated. Because they took insulin, they maintained, or at least largely maintained, their weight. Electrolyte imbalance, malnutrition, and the inevitable insulin reactions generally do them in.

She came out of the coma but had to be moved into her mother's home and cared for 24/7. She couldn't even feed or clean herself.

It works, so they do it, and it's as "addictive" and pathological as anorexia. I remember the article said some researchers said it IS anorexia, just channeled a different way.

I bet they'd let a diabetic who didn't take her meds into New Zealand, because after all she's not *FAT*.

I bet nobody would look at the outside of a bulemic who didn't take her meds and assume she was irresponsible, because after all she's not *FAT*.

:sarcasm:

This is just one more perfect example of how the current social norms in this country are really hurting women, mentally and physically.