AN MP has spoken out about his battle with diabetes as he prepares to take on a major sporting challenge.

Copeland MP Jamie Reed is hoping to raise funds for the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation after being diagnosed with type one diabetes almost six years ago.

Just two weeks before the 2010 general election, Mr Reed was rushed into intensive care in an advanced state of diabetic ketoacidosis.

Mr Reed, who was unaware of his condition at the time, said: “I was tired running up to the 2010 general election – it’s always a busy time – and thought that my rapid weight loss and tiredness was down to working hard.

“A fortnight out from the election, I couldn’t walk and my head felt as if it was exploding.

“I had a thirst like nothing I’ve ever experienced and was vomiting water constantly.

“My body was breaking down and I was heading for a coma in an advanced state of diabetic ketoacidosis.

“My hair was falling out, it was a frightening time for everyone around me, but I was pretty much out of it.

“I was taken into the West Cumberland Hospital under a blue light. They saved my life.”

Following his election success, Mr Reed was determined not to let this life-changing diagnosis stand in his way and committed himself to using his new-found position to make a difference.

He said: “When I received a diagnosis, everything fitted into place and I was determined to get on with the job I’d been elected to do.

“I was still recovering when the Derrick Bird shootings took place and that gave me a lot of perspective.”

He continued: “It isn’t a disease, it’s a condition and if it’s managed properly it doesn’t stop you from doing or achieving anything.

“It does change your life, it can affect your sense of yourself, but you have to control it, not let it control you.”

In a cruel twist of fate, Mr Reed’s niece was also diagnosed in January last year and his son then developed the condition in November.

Mr Reed said: “I felt absolute shock and total defiance at the same time as acceptance.

“Instead of resenting my condition, I now see it as the best thing that could have happened for me and my wife so that we can help my son and niece get on with life in the same way as it ever would have been.

“There’s nothing I now can’t help my son with, he’ll never have to think that nobody understands what it’s like to have the condition and I wish every child with the condition could benefit from that.

“It’s early days, but he’s my hero. On the football pitch, I think he tackles harder than he ever did.”

On the brink of his second London Marathon in April, Mr Reed struggles to fit the training into his busy schedule but is determined to make a difference.

He said: “We can cure this condition and we can and must improve the treatments for it before that point.

“Raising money for something that will help so many people keeps me going.

“I think of constituents living with the condition, not just those close to me, and I think ‘we’ll beat this’.

“I’m sure we can, but until that point, I’m determined to demonstrate, on behalf of everyone living with the condition, that there’s nothing we can’t do.”