'I was diagnosed at five, so have never really known anything else'

I was five-years-old when I was first diagnosed, so to be honest have never really known anything else.

Back then we used to use a single 'glass' syringe which had to be boiled once a week and cleaned. Back then, the majority of people were still injecting pork insulin.

A few years later human insulin was introduced and then what they called 100 strength human insulin.

Mine was Mixtard 30/70,  complete with much smaller and easier to use plastic disposable syringes.

Once again a few years along the 'penject' was introduced and I now currently use this system and inject a base insulin Glargene complete with Humalog.

When I was diagonsed there were at least four other family members mainly cousins and uncles who were also diabetic. I  have children now and my son is at high risk of contracting diabetes and has regular tests.

Diabetes has not affected my work or lifestyle in any way especially nowadays when everything is much easier to control and tests are easier to carry out, I have lived in Bangkok, Hong Kong and travelled to many countries wthout any problems.

A year ago my vision started to fail and I have had various amounts of lazer surgery.

I have since been diagnosed with End Use Renel Failure caused by diabetes and I am currently awaiting a combined kidney and pancreas transplant at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. So potentially I could be cured of diabetes after all this time. That would be very weird, but wonderful.