Hi,
I myself have had type 1 diabetes since I was 10. I'll be 26 this year and I've held my Class 2 medical for nearly 2 years now, with the intent of obtaining a Class 1 and applying to an FTC. What the CAA are doing are moving into the 21st century. I've seen a fair amount of changes over the years regarding insulin, glucose monitoring, retinal checks, so on.... The phrase, "I'm a diabetic" means something different to what it meant in 2000. I'm currently awaiting for my new Omni Pod. It's a device that sticks to my stomach or under my arm. It sends a constant signal to the app which I'll have on my iPhone. It constantly (every 5 seconds) updates the glucose result on the app. With that, there's an insulin pump device coming out in the near future which will work together with Omni Pod delivering insulin to counteract the glucose. What the electronic devices do and a working human pancreas does are exactly the same thing. In fact, I'd bet if in decades to come scientists looked at the glucose trends of someone with the electronics and someone with a working pancreas, the one wired up will have a far more stable trend in glucose levels. Medical technology is moving forward at an exponential rate, thus reducing complications with diabetes for a lot of people. I remember one of the specialists from a few years ago and he said, "I don't like the term, I have diabetes." He's right, you can't really say, they're diabetic. Really, some peoples pancreas are part of their liver. Mines at the moment is in a pen.
I'm not saying everyone injecting insulin is as thorough and careful as others. Believe me, I wish they were but for us that want to embrace it, live with it and not let it affect us, what's the problem? Let's keep moving forward with flight. Hopefully very soon, the rest of the world will move out of the 20th century and adopt what the Drs and the rest of the medical professionals here in the UK have done.