'Diabetes makes me cry'

By Gurvinder Aujla
Newsbeat reporter

The number of young people being diagnosed with diabetes is shooting up.

Charities say it's a time bomb. 10 years ago it was almost unheard of for a teenager to have it - now thousands do.

In the 1990s type 2 diabetes was seen as an older person's illness but now 1,400 children under the age of 16 are living with the condition.

Susan Hadley lives in a flat above a shop on a busy street in Dudley town centre. Both her mum and dad have type 2 diabetes and eight months ago she was diagnosed too.

My grandad lost a foot so when my mum told me that and my auntie died of a heart attack when she was young it really scares you.

The Surgery - Diabetes info

It's almost like a grieving process I was really upset.

I've cried through every doctor's appointment apart from the one I had last week.

I have to take lots of medication, I do injections twice a day, I take different tablets and I have to watch what I eat.

But in a way it's good, it's made me look at myself and see I was making myself ill by being overweight

When I was 16, I was a size 14/16 so I was overweight I never felt huge or anything.

Maybe if someone said to me when I was 15 and started to get bigger you could get diabetes you could have a heart attack, I may have thought I should sort it out.

It's a progressive illness and it's only going to get worse.