Sophie is on Lantus and Novorapid and her consultant suggested she goes onto an insulin pump. In the past, Sophie disliked the idea of using an insulin pump, but now she is keen because she knows that people have had great results with it. Sophie's main goal is to live a healthy life' and has made significant improvements to her diet and exercise planning. She also uses a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) that she finances herself. She only recently started using social media and found out that there are lots of young people out there' that like her, are living with type 1 diabetes.

Linda was diagnosed five years ago at the age of nineteen. She is on two types of insulin Lantus and Novorapid. Lantus is the long-acting or background insulin that she injects once a day. Novorapid is a short acting one that she injects after meals. Before Lantus she used to use Levemir, but it was changed because she developed an intolerance to the preservative in it. Diet and exercise are an important part of her lifestyle. She feels she has learnt a great deal about her condition and how to manage it.

Diagnosed in 1999, age 15. She was on an insulin called Human Mixtard that she injected twice a day and had to eat every three hours. Now she is on Lantus, an analogue long-acting insulin that she injects once a day and on fast-acting insulin; NovoRapid that she injects when she eats. Shortly after the interview she was due to go and try an Insulin Pump.

Her diabetes was very unsettled for a long time but recently she has managed to have and maintain good control. One of the main motivations for doing so is that she and her fianc'e would like to start a family after they are married. She says that the media often reports scary stories about pregnancy and diabetes and that it is important to say that women who have good control do have similar chances of having a healthy baby as non-diabetic mothers. Currently she is on Lantus and on NovoRapid.

When diagnosed thirteen years ago one of the insulins she was put on was Monotard. She remembers it was cloudy and she had to mix it with short-acting insulin using a syringe plus it stung every time she injected. At the age of ten she found the procedure too complicated and started to use pens. Also early on she was put on four injections a day but the insulin has changed over the years as different things have been more fashionable or they have worked better for her. Currently she is on Lantus and Humalog. As a teenager, what she really disliked about diabetes control was to do the 'finger pricking' and she "rebelled" by not doing her blood sugar tests.

She had no symptoms and her diabetes was diagnosed when she registered with a new doctor in a new town. The GP phoned her at home and said that they have found sugar in her urine. At the GP surgery she was told that the results were inconclusive because she neither fitted type 1 or type 2 diabetes profiles. She was advised to go and buy a glucometer to check her blood sugar levels and to avoid eating sugar. She waited for about three months before she saw the diabetes care team at the hospital. After further tests they concluded that she has type 1 diabetes but what they call LADA (Latent Auto Immune Diabetes in Adulthood) also known as Type 1.5. At first the consultant put her on tablets like for those with type 2 diabetes but after a month she had to start on insulin injections. She is on NovoMix twice a day.

Since diagnosis and until she was sixteen years old she was on a two daily injections of insulin. Until her early teens she had well-control diabetes, but then it began to slip. She found her insulin regimen oppressive and limiting so when it was changed to short-acting and long-acting analogue insulin she had a sense of freedom that she has never experienced before in relation to food and mealtimes. The problem was that around the same time she started to be concerned about her weight and decided to go on a diet. That was the start of her eating disorder that was to last for several years. She realised that she needed help and talked to her GP whom she trusted. Eventually she was able to find a psychologist that worked with her and helped her overcome her eating disorder. Unfortunately she developed diabetes-related complications which affected her eyesight. She was registered blind at the age of 23. She currently uses an insulin pump and her control is very good.