Hi my name is John . I'm 14 years old and I've had type 1 diabetes since I was 3. I was diagnosed on the 4th September 1997. At first I was on two injections a day which my mum had to do because I was too young. This was very difficult for my mum because I am needle phobic, so my mum and dad had to pin me down to get the injections in me.

After a few years my diabetic nurse suggested trying an insulin pen. The amount of insulin I was using was so small that I went back onto injections, and I didn't like the pen anyway.

At around this time I also lost my symptoms to hypos. This made life very difficult at home and also at school. I was only in year 2 at primary school. My teacher, at this time was Miss G., she looked after me very well but needed a lot of help from my mum, about signs to look for with my hypos. The biggest way I could help at the time was doing my BM when Miss G. asked me to.

I got bullied a lot because of my diabetes which really upset me. Boys didn't want to play with me or be my friend because they didn't understand why I coudn't run about or play football with them. Every time I tried I went hypo. The only people who wanted to look after me were the girls, and not many boys tried to look after me. I soon started to feel depressed about being diabetic. By the time I got into year 4 my blood sugars were out of control. I yo-yoed from 1 point something all the way up, so that all it said was HI, every day. By this time I was doing 4-10 BM's a day because I was still hypo unaware. Not only was I unhappy from being billied, I was feeling unwell and haveing to eat extra snacks, which made me gain a lot of weight and that added to the bullying.

It was at about this time that my mum found out about insulin pumps. She thought this would probably work for me and asked my consultant at Blackpool Victoria hospital, if I could go onto one. He had never been very supportive, he didn't believe I was hypo unaware and he said no to the pump. My mum was very unhappy with his treatment of me and asked my GP if I could transfer to another hospital. She transferred me to Royal Preston hospital.

Mum and I are much happier at Preston hospital. They recognised straight away that my diabetes was out of control, I am definitely hypo unaware and they found that I had a large injection site lump. This had never been taken notice of by Blackpool hospital. After trying a few new insulins, to see if my control would improve (which it didn't) my new consultant applied to NICE for funding for an insulin pump.

By now, the bullying and my weight gain, was making me so depressed that I was having suicidal thoughts. School arranged a mentor, Mrs Woodward, for me to speak to. She did her best to help me come to terms with my diabetes and gave me ideas on how to keep myself happy. Mrs Woodward is such a special person that I keep in touch with her.

By the end of year 4 I was using a Medatronic insulin pump. I started to feel better almost straight away. My blood sugars were soon in a range between 4 and 15 and even though 15 is considered a bit high, my mum was thrilled to bits. My HBA1C went from 10 to 7 in just a few months. I felt happier, more confident and started to loose weight because I wasn't needing extra snacks. My consultant was amazed at how quick my control had stabilised and I learnt how to use the pump. The only problem I ever really had, was that I used to pull the site out in my sleep. My mum managed to sort this out by sewing a pocket onto my pyjamas for me to put my pump in. She also used the same idea for my P.E shorts and swimming trunks.

Everything with my control has been great since then apart from my hypo syptoms have never returned. This put a continuous burden on my mum because was the only one who knew how tell I was hypo. Though I'd gone down to 4 BM's, I was stating to need to do more especially when I started high school.

In my first year of high school, a few boys decided to bully me because I am diabetic. The bullying was both verbal and physical, and I started to feel depressed again. Thankfully my high school and headteacher have zero tolerance towards bullying and my bullies soon stopped.

Last July my consultant decided that as I was getting older, I needed more independance. I was still hypoglycaemic unaware, so because the pump I use is a Minimed Paradigm, my consultant suggested that I could try their new 'Real Time continuous glucose monitoring system'. This system uses a glucose sensor which is inserted into the skin and by the connection of a small transmitter, transmits continuous glucose values from under my skin to my insulin pump using a radio signal.

Using this device allows me to know when my blood sugar is going too high, but more importantly to me, when it is going too low. This happens by way of an alarm which warns me that something is wrong with my blood sugar and that I need to do something about it. Within weeks of using this device I was only needing to do the two blood sugars a day, needed to calibrate the sensor to the pump.

Now nearly a year later, I am starting to regain some hypo symptoms. They are not 100% reliable yet but I hope they will be one day. I am now a much more confident and happy teenager who happens to have diabetes, NOT a diabetic teenager.