I was diagnosed in Liverpool in 1981. I was in hospital (Alder Hey) for ten days, whilst my glucose levels normalized and they educated me on doing my own injections, swapping needles, sterilizing syringes, and counting carbs. The counting was more "55grms of mashed potato will be this many carbs, so you'll need this many for the insulin that you're taking.
Manually mixed Actrapid and Monotard, twice a day. If one missed lunch, it was almost certain that an ambulance and admittance to A&E would result!
I was changed off manual mixing in about 2001, changing to insulin pens and basal/bolus. Still much the same regimen, with fixed insulin doses and fixed meal sizes. Only when I moved back to the north west in 2004, back to Arrowe Park, and saw the consultants and DSNs there (like Kay) did I get to go on the Whistle course (the locally run course, similar to DAFNE), did I finally get flexibility in what I eat and the knowledge of how to adjust the insulin for meal sizes and changes in carbs.
I'm happy to say that, since being on basal/bolus, I've not had a hypo that I wasn't able to deal with, and I haven't had to be admitted to A&E. The last such episode was in about 1997, thankfully.
In the time since diagnosis I've gone from Actrapid/Monotard (which got discontinued), through Lantus (made me drowsy), Levemir (split dosing made things complicated), and now on Tresiba (now less complicated, but 30+ years of injections make my sites a bit lumpy.) Fast acting insulin isn't always that fast acting, which can be interesting, too.
Biggest lesson learned recently? Get up when the alarm goes off, rather than turning over and thinking, "another ten minutes". Turning over results in hormones being released, to give me a kick in the pants, which guarantees a VERY high glucose level about two hours after.