This week's Big Issue is all about diabetes. What the term means, how you get illness and what having diabetes feels like for sufferers.

By Ally Macdonald at Diabetes UK

What is diabetes?

When you eat, some of the food gets broken down in your stomach to make glucose (a type of sugar) which goes into your blood. Your pancreas makes insulin (a chemical messenger) which helps the glucose get into the body’s cells and gives you energy to run, play and grow.

If someone has diabetes, the body either can’t make insulin at all (Type 1) or there is not enough insulin or it doesn’t work properly (Type 2). That means that glucose gets piled up in the blood and makes you feel really sick. You might feel very tired, anxious or shaky.

Around 20,000 children under the age of 15 in the UK have diabetes and nine out of ten children with diabetes have Type 1 diabetes.

How do you get diabetes?

Anyone can get Type 1 diabetes and we don’t really know why. We do know that you don’t get it from eating lots of sweets and you can’t catch it from someone else. You can’t tell if someone has diabetes just by looking at them.

How do you treat diabetes?

Children with Type 1 diabetes have to replace their missing insulin to keep them alive. They do that either by taking injections, or by a pump which sends insulin through a small tube into the body.

Children with diabetes need to check their blood glucose levels regularly to make sure it’s at the right level. They prick their finger and put a tiny drop of blood into a little machine which tells them what their blood glucose level is.

Symptoms of diabetes?

going to the loo a lot to do a wee

feeling really thirsty and drinking all the time

feeling really tired, and wanting to sleep a lot

losing weight

itchiness or soreness when you wee

things looking blurry

if you cut yourself, it takes ages to heal

If you get any of these, tell your parents or guardian straight away, and they’ll take you to your doctor.

What does having diabetes feel like?

Alice Foard,15, says: “I still sometimes think ‘why me?’ when I have to do an injection or get excluded from outings, but I get through it. I did have some problems with my diabetes at school but, since that’s been sorted out, they have been really supportive. When I do my injections sometimes this girl always moans at me and says, ‘Why do you have to do that? It’s disgusting’, but I have to do it because it’s essential. I want children to have a normal life without feeling diabetes is taking over.”

Nine-year-old Claudia Tate says: “I think it’s unfair I have diabetes, but Mummy says that it will never stop me being able to do anything. I wish all schools were like mine and really care. Mummy says a lot of children are not cared for in school, and that makes me sad. I get angry sometimes when I feel poorly as it makes me feel yuk and it stops me playing sometimes.”