Marlaina Goedel was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was just five-years-old, and not only was the disease controlling her, but it almost cost her life.

“I’ve crashed my car into a brick building before having a diabetic attack while driving,” Goedel recalled.

Her condition was so extreme that she felt robbed of a normal childhood, telling the Daily Mail that she was in and out of hospital with  life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis, which causes toxic chemicals to build up in the blood due to a lack of insulin.

Now 30-years-old, the Illinois woman no longer needs daily insulin shots and can finally enjoy sugar again thanks to a pioneering stem cell therapy that has cured her of type 1 diabetes.

Goedel was one of three Americans who have been cured of their type 1 diabetes thanks to the clinical trial involving an islet cell transplant.

It is a one-off infusion that involved transplanting islet cells into her liver to help her body produce insulin on its own.

After four weeks, she no longer needed to take insulin.

“[My doctor] said, ‘Mark it on your calendar. Today is the day. Stop all insulin,'” Goedel said of the life-changing moment.

“I just went quiet and finally said, ‘I’m here. I’m in shock. I’m going to need you to repeat that.’”

The trial was being run at the University of Chicago Medicine Transplant Institute.

While Islet cell transplants isn’t a new procedure, the current anti-rejection medication used can be toxic to the transplanted cells, potentially making it less effective over time.

The clinical trial that ran at the university tested out a new antibody called tegoprubart, which was given to Goedel and the two other patients.

Tegoprubart is made from lab-made antibodies that trick the immune system into thinking the body made the cells on its own, preventing them from being rejected.

The patients were then given islet cells from a deceased donor’s pancreas, which were then infused into the patient’s small blood vessels in their liver. Those cells then lodged into the blood vessels and started producing insulin.

For Goedel the only side effect of the procedure was “feeling like I got punched in the ribs,”  with the procedure lasting just an hour.

“The cure is out there,” Goedel told the Daily Mail. 

With her new lease on life, Goedel plans to go back to school and go horse riding without worrying about suffering an attack and causing an accident.

“It took a while to get used to saying, ‘I am cured. I am diabetes free.’ It’s been very freeing,” she said.

“No one should have to live with this disease. I know that now more than ever.”

Images: Good Morning America/ UChicago Medicine

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