Allison Sarver was only 18 years old when she began suffering pain and nausea after eating her meals. By the age of 24, her diet was greatly reduced – mostly to broths and liquids – she had lost a significant amount of weight as well as her job.
After going from physician to physician and getting several misdiagnoses, including irritable bowel syndrome, a doctor finally told Allison she had chronic pancreatitis. Using the Internet, Allison found that doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, had a team that specializing in treating pancreatitis. Their treatment was radical: if the first strategy of removing the gallbladder didn’t work, then surgeons would remove her pancreas and install her islets into her liver to take over production of insulin.
The gallbladder surgery failed. Allison at first rejected the idea of removing her pancrease but eventually agreed to the operation. At 25, she is now healthy, has regained her weight, eats a normal diet and has gotten her life back.
Read the original article and watch the video on ABC News.