It is fair to say that growing up – I was a crazy moo. Smiley, happy and mad as a box of frogs. I also had the energy of a Duracell bunny – on acid.

Then, at 15 years old – something changed. As an A* student, it was most out of character for me to fall asleep in my GCSE History exam. I ate iced buns by the dozen and endeavoured to satisfy my unquenchable thirst by downing roughly 396 gallons of water a day. It became an effort to walk 100 yards to the bus-stop, at 5’6″ my weight plummeted to 6 stone, I had constant halitosis and to add insult to injury – my hair started falling out. This was not the look I was going for to bag myself a hottie.

Being a teenager – I would rather have stuck a fork in my eye than talked to my parents about this – as it was, like sooo embarrassing. So I didn’t. I took the sensible approach of suffering in silence, sleeping 14 hours a day and almost failing my GCSEs. Genius, I know.

Despite my best attempts to hide the fact that by 16 – I had developed the get up and go of a 98 year old and the body of an 8 year old – my parents noticed. Damn them. One trip to the GP and a pee in a cup later and I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Admittedly, upon diagnosis, my life fell apart a little bit, but I soon moved on. 12 and a half years later – happy, healthy, energetic and mad as a box of frogs once more – I am able to share 3 key pieces of diabetic wisdomery with the world: