"A normal family. Mum, dad and three kids. The usual ups and downs. Then mum notices that one of the children is losing weight and has extreme thirst. He looks unwell. A family holiday is postponed as parental instinct kicks in. Within 24 hours there’s a diagnosis - type 1 diabetes. The old worries and concerns fade into insignificance as a whole new world opens up. Several blood glucose checks a day, clinic appointments, insulin injections. Always the injections. Five a day. And half an ear for a fatal hypoglycaemic attack during the night. Every night".

Let me be straight. Type 1 diabetes is pants. 

Type 1 diabetes is the result of an auto-immune attack on the pancreas that kills the insulin-producing cells and usually happens in children. No-one really knows why the body does this. Without insulin your body cannot convert sugar into energy and you die.

Poor management of the condition can result in “complications” such as organ damage, limb amputation or blindness and this management consists of roughly a dozen blood sugar tests with an average of five finely-measured insulin injections a day.

In the past two decades – treatments for type 1 diabetes have come on leaps and bounds and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (“JDRF”) is at the forefront of these developments. This year a so-called “artificial-pancreas” is being launched that combines an insulin pump with a continuous blood sugar monitor – connected via bluetooth and an app on a smartphone – to further ease management of the condition.

But what every parent wants is a cure. Research is now zeroing-in on two key areas: production of large quantities of high-quality insulin-producing cells at industrial scales in the lab and preventing the body repeating its auto-immune attack on these newly-created cells.

My wife first noticed something was wrong when our eldest child complained of headaches, nausea, incessant thirst and peeing. A family trip to the local swimming baths revealed he had lost a lot of weight. Thanks to mum, Harry was in hospital that afternoon where a full diagnosis of “T1D” was made and he began a lifetime of insulin-dependency.

Our youngest, Lara was diagnosed with T1D nearly two years later at the age of seven. After receiving her first insulin injection she thought she was “better” and couldn’t understand why everyone was so sad.

So “do the math”. Our family has to contend with two-dozen blood tests and ten insulin shots a day. We just get on with it – no drama.

But it’s pants.

Please help Clare, Humphrey and me raise funds for the excellent work funded by the JDRF.

You’ll help bring the demise of this bastard disease that bit closer.

Paul.

PS - an extract from Paul's diary....

"Another emotional day...those heroes at Harvard and MIT have made a breakthrough in the encapsulation of beta cells to protect them from auto-immune attack. All this fundraising (I'm doing the London Marathon again) has a purpose. I have a small fantasy that the money raised pays for a coffee that means a technician at MIT can work 10 minutes longer to assemble the kit for a successful procedure. Or pays for a taxi that means a scrub nurse can spend 10 minutes longer perfectly preparing the equipment for the next morning's first procedure to cure type 1. I go to sleep hopeful".

http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/26/is-this-the-cure-for-type-1-diabetes-scientists-stop-condition-for-six-months-5644495/