When champion kickboxer Catherine Brady (27) was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes six years ago, her main worry was that she could no longer train. But Catherine needn’t have worried, she has gone on to win the world ladies kick-boxing championship for the second time. She previously won the title in 2001. And far from diabetes dampening down her sporting career, she now says: “I rule diabetes, it doesn’t rule me.”

Catherine has been kick-boxing since she was eight years old, but in the time leading up to her diagnosis with diabetes she went from being really energetic to the stage where she could not even go training. “I was drinking loads and loads of fluid and I was not eating much – I dropped about 5kg in two weeks,” Catherine says. When Catherine was diagnosed, her consultant, Dr Richard Firth was delighted to hear she was involved in exercise because it makes it easier to establish good diabetes control.
“If I am not doing kickboxing, I am in the gym. I exercise five-six days a week. I have to drop weight sometimes when I’m fighting and I have to adjust my insulin for that. I fight at either 55kg or 50kg – the two lightest weights,” Catherine says. For the time being Catherine prefers not to use an insulin pump because she worries it might get pulled out when she is running, or it might get kicked when she is kicking.
“I would just be too afraid of what could happen. In five or six years when I retire from kickboxing, I will look into it then,” Catherine says. Meanwhile, Catherine reduces her insulin when she is training. Alternatively, when her sugars are a little on the high side, she uses the normal insulin dose and the training also helps to bring her sugar levels down.

When diagnosed Catherine’s main worry was that she wouldn’t be able to keep training. She also worried about her social life and if she could still go out with her friends. “And I was worried about drinking alcohol and eating the foods I wanted. Of course once I found out about it, it was a lot easier to handle,” Catherine says.
Catherine’s family took her diagnosis on board and didn’t make an issue out of it. “It just seemed to fall into our lives. My friends were a bit different. If I was out having dinner and needed an injection, they’d be like ‘Oh, what are you doing there?’ And wanting to know what was happening. There are some friends who wouldn’t like me to inject in front of them and I’d have to go into the bathroom. Whereas others take it on board like my family does. My closest friends don’t even notice it, but they do keep an eye out to make sure I’m ok,” Catherine says.
Catherine was going to college in Dundalk and living at home when she was diagnosed which she thinks was a good thing. “If you are living away from home, you go out an awful lot more and your social life is hectic. Whereas when I was at home, the food was always given to me and my mam would know what to give me. And I just went out one or two nights a week,” Catherine says. Since Catherine was diagnosed, a first cousin of hers has also been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and several of her uncles have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
For her treatment, Catherine first attended the Mater Hospital diabetes adolescent unit and moved from there to attend Dr Firth privately. “My parents would rather me deal directly with Dr Firth than with who ever happened to be at the clinic that day,” Catherine says. Dr Firth has helped Catherine to establish a routine that allows for her punishing training schedule with her kickboxing club, the Cobra-Khan.

Catherine believes there is not enough awareness about diabetes in the general population.
“In my job when they found out I had diabetes they were sort of ‘What happens if anything happens you?’. I told them it was probably going to be very rare, but if that anything did they just needed to get in touch with my family who would tell them what to do, or else ring an ambulance. Catherine works for the Halifax Bank in Dublin.
“People really don’t know what to do. A lot of people don’t know what diabetes is. “I know before I was diagnosed, I thought it meant there was too little sugar in your system. I think a lot of people would think that as well. If I was sweating or something other people would say ‘What’s wrong with you?’. But I’d know I was low and hadn’t had a chance to get sugar. My own family and friends pick up on that straight away and run and get me a Lucozade. But in general people don’t, there just isn’t enough awareness out there,” Catherine says.
Catherine would advise other athletes to avoid letting diabetes get on top of them. “Continue your life the way you already were and make your diabetes work in around that. When I was initially diagnosed, I thought ‘oh no, my whole life is going to change,’ it hasn’t. It’s just an extra little thing you need to do before you have your meals. And you need to monitor your blood sugars more when you are exercising,” Catherine says.

Sheila O’Kelly, Diabetes Ireland Magazine

Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2010