Every person living with diabetes experiences it differently.
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For Luke Newson who has cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, having his insulin pump mistaken for an MP3 player is just something that happens.
The 25-year-old is part of a consumer reference group of Northern Tasmanians living with diabetes, who are using their experiences to inform practice and clinical care.
Formed in partnership with the John Morris Diabetes Centre, since its inception last year the group has already helped to implement change.
Meeting every month, Mr Newson said their main goal was clear - to ensure best practice between the patient and the clinician.
"There is a core group of us at the moment," he said.
"Our main focus is determining our own goals and how we are going to achieve them.
"It's all about us, as the patient, making sure we can talk to and communicate with doctors.
"It's about expressing what works, what doesn't and how we feel we can best be looked after.
"How we can achieve more tailor-made treatments for someone, for what will work the best for them."
CFRD is a unique type of diabetes, which is common to people living with cystic fibrosis - a genetic condition that primarily affects the lungs and digestive system.
While treated in the same way as other types of diabetes, CFRD is different to type 1 and type 2.
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For Mr Newson, his CFRD diagnosis came when he was about 18 years old. Like his cystic fibrosis, he said he had learned how to live with and manage the condition.
"When I was diagnosed, I was annoyed, because it was just another thing I knew I would need to look after and manage," he said.
"Once I got over that, it wasn't too much of a change.
"I just have to remember to check my sugar levels and inject my insulin - for the first few years before I got my insulin pump this was the major focus. Now I feel really comfortable with it all."
As a young adult, Mr Newson forms part of the key demographic who often slip through the cracks in efficient management of diabetes.
In July last year the John Morris Diabetes Centre hosted a public forum aimed at engaging with young people living diabetes, to find out how their experiences could shape the service and make it better.
As acting nurse unit manager Sam Beattie explained, it soon became so much more.
"The project centred around the experienced based, co-design model. Where you go to your consumers, and there's lots of methods of engaging them and finding out what their experiences are, and then you use that to design and inform service delivery," she said.
"Because these young adults who live with diabetes, we can't get them to come to the clinic. So we thought, let's engage them, find out what they want, and then build the service around them.
"But so many people showed up to the forums and everyone wanted a say. So we thought, let's form a committee or a group. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength."
Diabetes remains the fastest growing chronic condition in Australia. In Tasmania about 5.5 per cent, or around 29,000 Tasmanians, are living with diabetes.
For Mr Newson, the experience of living with the condition is often a far cry from what people think it is.
"Like my cystic fibrosis, people can make assumptions, but you can't just tell by looking at someone and know they have diabetes," he said.
"You also can't assume why they have it, but probably the major misconception or stereotype, is that people often assume diabetes is something that only affects older people.
"I was 19 when I was diagnosed, so it can be really hard to make those common connections.
"That's why the reference group is so beneficial - it's a point of contact.
"We are all living with different, but similar conditions and some have been living with diabetes a lot longer, so have that real-life experience."
Along with informing research projects, Ms Beattie said input from the reference group was having a "profound" impact on the John Morris Diabetes Centre clinicians.
"It's changed our entire way of thinking," she said.
"We thought we knew, as clinical experts, what people wanted. Then we started asking questions and we got answers we weren't expecting.
"We were full of words, and then we became silent and started listening. And when we started listening, we realised how little we knew.
"We listened as clinicians, but we started to listen in a way that was as a partner in delivering health services. Now we are seeing the impact."
- For more information about the consumer reference group, email jmdc.consumer@gmail.com.