A mother whose four-year-old daughter faces a harrowing array of daily medical treatments has spoken out to raise awareness about her condition.

Doctors diagnosed Elouisa Baker, from Weybridge, with type one diabetes last August and needs hourly care day and night just to keep her alive.

Type one diabetes is difficult to control and can be life-threatening and the only productive thing her parents can do is raise awareness in the hope the Government will increase funding to find a cure.

St George’s College Junior School pupil Elouisa’s diabetes is increasing in severity four-fold each year and nobody knows why.

She has had almost 1,000 blood tests in the past two months alone and meal times are a minefield, because all the carbohydrates she eats need to be offset with the right dose of insulin.

The family cannot leave the house without pre-weighed food and scales to weigh leftovers, and everything has to be stringently recorded in a food diary.

They have not eaten out as a family since the diagnosis and she has to take her own lunch box to friends’ parties because she is not allowed the enticing treats on offer.

Mrs Baker said: “Her nursery classmates are protective of her and solemnly inform entertainers that Elouisa mustn’t have the sweets they hand out as prizes due to her type one.

“Her bravery motivates me to do everything I can to help raise public awareness of this life-changing disease.

“It particularly stings when people ask if we fed Elouisa too many sweets to cause her type one diabetes.

“Our desperate hope for the future is that a cure will be found soon and it is this that I comfort myself with when I am exhausted from a bad night of rollercoaster blood sugars and am left with a tired and fed up little girl.”

Elouisa said she felt sad about having type one diabetes, particularly because of the number of blood tests.

Mrs Baker said: “She often asks me if she can have medicine to make it go away once and for all and when I take her insulin pump off to bath her she runs about saying ‘look, I don’t have diabetes now’.”

Type one diabetes is distinctly different to type two and is not linked to lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise.

People with the condition are at risk of devastating complications including blindness, heart disease, amputation, stroke and kidney failure.

Visit jdrf.org.uk to learn more.