What is type 1.5?

Here is what this site says about it.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/type15-diabetes.html

Also, this site is not a charity, you may be confusing it with Diabetes UK which is another thing altogether.

LADA stands for latent autoimmune diabetes in adults. As with Type 1, it is caused by an autoimmune response The immune system targets the bodies own cells. In this case the attack is against the beta cells in the pancreas which produce insulin. This means that eventually the person will produce insufficient and will need to replace that insulin. (ie by injection) In LADA, this can be relatively slow process taking some years.

1. not needing insulin at diagnosis or for the first 6 months (this one really depends on if someone has ignored/got used to symptoms, there are many people, including myself who get diagnosed at the end of the process and need insulin at diagnosis because of this)
2. certain antibodies being found in the blood. (most common in LADA are what are called GAD antibodies )
3. adult onset

There is a useful chart here showing the differences between T1, T2 and LADA
http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2010/may/the-other-diabetes-lada-or-type-1-5.html

At the bottom there is also a link to another type of diabetes (MODY) which is occasionally called 1.5

Here is another slightly more academic description. It includes a set of five characteristics of LADA that have been found in some research in Australia (though hasn't been tested elsewhere)
http://www.diapedia.org/type-1-diabetes-mellitus/lada-latent-autoimmune-diabetes-of-the-adult )

The forum is just individuals with diabetes of various types - 1, 1.5, 2 - who post and share experiences and compare notes. So it's based on individuals' actual experience. There is no official entity or policy line.

You'll find it an incredibly rich source of information.

Hi. You may be confusing this site with the one that DUK (Diabetes UK) supports which is www.diabetessupport.co.uk. I use both and this site covers a much wider range of topics and in great detail and isn't quite so politically correct. No site will give you a certified response as we aren't qualified doctors etc but most of us have diabetes with a lot of experience to offer. BTW, DUK tends not to recognise T1.5 but follows a more rigid T1 or T2 classification.