Diabulimia: Patricia Carroll Shares Daughter's Tragic Story To Raise Awareness Of Illness

'In 2010, she was diagnosed with renal failure - and that's when we realised the damage had been done.'
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Patricia Carroll, 65, has gone through what no parent should ever have to: her daughter Natalie died aged 38, after a long and heartbreaking battle with diabulimia.

Natalie was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was eight. In her late teens, she discovered she could restrict her insulin intake to lose weight.

But it came at a cost. The condition caused her body to develop abnormally high levels of blood sugar, which resulted in weight loss over time. The issue was that her body was so starved of calories that it eventually began to break itself down to try and gain energy.

Years of insulin abuse led to organ failure - and, in the end, Natalie was too ill to have a life-saving pancreas and kidney transplant.

She died on 1 January 2014.

Diabulimia was recently called the ‘world’s most dangerous eating disorder’ by a BBC Three documentary, where doctors called for greater awareness of the illness, saying patients are “still falling through the net”.

Patricia agrees. She told HuffPost UK: “More information needs to be put out there.”

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