Diabetic Woman Claims Becoming a Mother ‘Saved Her Life’

A diabetic woman, who nearly died after she stopped taking insulin, has claimed that becoming a mother has ‘saved her life’.

Rianna Merie, 25, from Windsor, Ontario in Canada, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes just before her sixth birthday.

Her mother, Dawn Courtenay, 44, noticed she was losing weight and was always tired and thirsty. So, she took her to the GP who sent her to hospital where blood tests revealed her very high blood glucose levels.

Then, Rianna’s life was composed of a lot of finger pricks to measure her blood levels every few hours and insulin injections before meals. She said that at first, her mum did it for her until a few years later.

When her parents had another baby when she was 10 years old, that’s when she thought of stopping the insulin injections.

“I started to feel like I wasn’t in control of my life. I decided I wouldn’t check my blood sugar levels to take back control and feel free. I’d take enough insulin to keep my body functioning, but not enough to feel well,” she said.

She said that this habit made her lose weight, as her body was ‘going into survival mode’ and burning more energy.

Known as diabulimia, her risky behaviour made her lose up to a stone in three months.

Soon after, her parents noticed, so they took her to see a doctor who did blood tests, which revealed her sugars were again too high.

“My parents realised what I was doing, and for a while would make me take my insulin in front of them,” she said. However, when she realised she was putting the weight back on, she didn’t like it.

As she went back to her ‘bad habit’, at the age of 13, she weighed seven stone and liked the way she looked, but health-wise, she felt ‘terrible’.

After high school, she moved to Hailsham, east Sussex, to study political sciences and did a lot of partying and drinking, which she wasn’t supposed to do. However, when she went back to Canada, she wasn’t happy with her health, and at age 19, fell into a depression and started binge eating.

However, at the end of the year, she met her boyfriend Shaun Synnott, 27. Suddenly, she said, her life started to feel ‘normal’ and it continued to be so when she found out that she was pregnant at the age of 20.

“At first I was terrified, but then I realised it was time to take care of my health and body because it wasn’t just me anymore. I began to see a doctor three times a week, went to see a dietitian and was on top of measuring my blood sugar levels and insulin intake,” she said.