This teenager has her life changed by the new artificial pancreas
Video Credit: PA
A 17-year-old girl with type 1 diabetes is the first NHS patient to have an electronic insulin pump installed outside of clinical trials.
Laura Dunion, from Oulton in Leeds, has a device installed which senses blood sugar levels and automatically injects insulin into her body.
Now, Laura doesn’t need to regularly inject herself with the hormone.
When Laura was just eight years old, she was diagnosed with diabetes. She had the device installed at Leeds Children’s Hospital last year.
‘Once I’d heard about it and what it did, I wanted it. It did take time getting used to it because I had to take a big step backward. You kind of had to let it do its job, you can’t do what you’ve always been used to doing’ Laura said.
‘I actually had to put my blood in and correct the insulin. Now I had to take a big step back and say “This is what it does, I can’t interfere with it”‘.’
‘[Diabetes has] never stopped me from doing anything but, if I have been doing something and my blood’s dropped, then I’ve had to stop doing what I’m doing to go and sort it out.’
‘Now I can keep doing what I’m doing because I know that my blood is not going to stop me.’
Laura’s mother said: ‘Laura went from being nearly nine years old, out playing in the street and being a bit more independent with her friends, to being a child that I couldn’t leave in a room on her own at all without worrying that she may have a low blood sugar and collapse.’
‘Now, after nine years, I can sleep through the night without worrying about Laura’s blood.’
Laura is happy after having an electronic insulin pump fitted as it has made her life so much easier.
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