Could you elaborate more on how it became, it manifested itself?
I mean when I was 12 it was like issues with my eating rather than like my diabetes. I started by like skipping out the snacks and things because I just felt that I was eating too much and I didn't want to be eating all of that. And then kind of I'd say like from the age of kind of 12 till 16 my eating disorder didn't really have any impact on my blood sugar control, because I was very careful to kind of adjust my insulin to what I was eating. And like, yes, every time I went to diabetes clinic my HbA1c was fine, and as far as they were concerned everything was going okay. But…
What about, did you, on those occasions when you talked to the dietician, what happened then?
When I talked to the dietician I lied, because at that point nobody knew about my eating disorder apart from me, and I wasn't ready for anyone to know. And I knew what I should be eating and like the kinds of things, like the routine I should have. So I just kind of, when she asked me about that I'd say, 'This is what I have, blah, blah, blah, blah'. And she was like, 'Oh, that's fabulous'. And I'd be sitting there like, 'I'm lying to you'. I guess kind of because I got away with it I didn't think it was such a major issue. But then when I was 16 I started binge eating and trying to make myself vomit. And so obviously the binges caused quite a lot of fluctuations in my blood sugars. And when that kind of started happening I started like increasing my insulin but not like recording it. I'd like just record kind of what I was supposed to be having. I guess I was quite deceitful about that, and because I didn't want my diabetes team to find out because I didn't want my parents to know.
I found that like obviously when I'm not taking my insulin my blood sugars increase, which causes like a lot of water loss, which I interpreted as weight loss. And kind of like the more I did that and the more like weight I appeared to lose, like even all the kind of, all the negative side-effects and the damage I knew I was doing, it, I kind of ignored that. And, because at that point the like feelings that I got from the eating disorder were very strong, and that kind of overruled everything else and all kind of sensibility and common sense that I had. And I guess I kind of told myself that I'd only do it until I got to like a certain weight. And then that would be okay and then I'd start taking my insulin again and…
So your weight became an issue when, since you were sort of 16?
I'm, I was, I've been very aware of my weight ever since I was quite young, but like when I was 12 as I said was like when I first kind of tried to do anything about it. But it was kind of, yes, 16 when as I say it like became kind of more of an issue and more dangerous, because like I'd have the bingeing and then on the other side I'd have the restricting. Then when I came to uni at 18 that's when it really got out of control, I guess because I was living by myself for the first time. I didn't have my parents like cooking food for me or like being aware of when I was eating and when I wasn't.
Obviously my blood sugars went very, very high. So, like sometimes where I didn't take my insulin for a couple of days, and so obviously that made me very, very ill. And I was constantly tired, had no energy, like, and depending on kind of how long I'd been skipping my insulin for, like I'd get, like my muscles would ache, and I'd feel sick constantly because like I was probably like going into DKA. And like sometimes it got to the point where I knew I had to take some insulin otherwise I might not wake up.