Jennifer Matthews: When Lilly Jaffe entered the world, her parents couldn't have been happier.
Laurie Jaffe: We were beyond excited.
Jennifer Matthews: But that joy quickly turned to panic. Lilly was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was just one-month-old.
Michael Jaffe: It was so sad to see ... and scary.
Jennifer Matthews: For six years, Lilly was poked and prodded. Blood sugar checks 10 times a day and insulin to keep her alive. Her parents watched every mouth of food she ate.
Laurie Jaffe: We couldn't let her guard down, constantly in a state of high alert.
Jennifer Matthews: But a breakthrough discovery changed everything. Doctors diagnosed Lilly with a rare, genetic form of diabetes. Instead of insulin, she now takes this pill twice a day.
Dr. Louis Philipson says, up to 2,000 patients in the United States who are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes may actually have Lilly's form of the disease.
Dr. Louis Philipson: Well, it's life changing, and it's hard to imagine anything more profound than to take a child and convert them from insulin to pills.
Jennifer Matthews: Patients like Lilly carry a gene that allows too much potassium to leave their pancreas cells. Drugs called Sulfonylureas increase the amount of potassium, so patients can produce insulin on their own. But so far, doctors have found only children diagnosed before six months old actually carry the gene.
The discovery allowed Lilly to get rid of her insulin shots.
Laurie Jaffe: She is a new child. She, for the first time in her life, knows what it's like to be a normal child, and it's wonderful.
Michael Jaffe: It's just this huge weight was lifted off of our lives.
Jennifer Matthews: Lilly's happy, too!
Lilly Jaffe: Everyone doesn't have to stop me from eating.
Jennifer Matthews: Now she can focus on just being a kid.
This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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