Anorexic woman nearly dies from taking 90 diet pills weekly

Anorexic woman nearly dies from taking 90 diet pills weekly

A young woman's diet pill addiction nearly killed her after causing her weight to plummet from 57kg to 25kg over the span of two years.

In her teenage years, Amber Girling was often teased by her peers for her weight.

The Daily Mail reported that she turned to slimming pills when she was 17 years old, after traditional dieting and exercising at the gym did not yield noticeable weight loss.

At the peak of her addiction, Ms Girling was taking up to 90 diet pills weekly.

The young woman from Kent, England, took a mix of four different types of weight loss drugs she had acquired online and from stores.

She began to experience severe pain in her stomach and her skin started to turn sallow.

Her elder sister noticed her increasingly gaunt figure and sent her to the hospital for medical attention.

Ms Girling underwent rehabilitation at a specialist clinic in May last year for anorexia and her addiction to weight loss pills. She was discharged five months later weighing at a healthier 51kg.

According to The Mirror UK, she said: "All these dieting pills came up on the internet search results and promised fast results by suppressing your appetite and speeding up your metabolism."

"They seemed like the answer to all my problems."

"But they're not - I nearly lost my life - I want people to think twice before resorting to slimming pills."

Now 20 years old, Ms Girling is sharing her story of overcoming her eating disorder and diet pill addiction to warn others of the dangers of slimming pills.

This follows the Interpol's recent worldwide warning of the drug 2.4-dinitrophenol (DNP), which killed 21-year-old Eloise Parry last month.

Ms Parry had ingested eight DNP tablets which made her metabolism soar and "burnt her up from inside out." Two tablets are considered to be a lethal dose.

According to The Straits Times, a 21-year-old woman in Singapore also died in 2012 after taking the same drug she had bought online.

minlee@sph.com.sg

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