
You may not know but Hull FC star Cameron Scott has been living with Type One diabetes for near enough 10 years.
Diagnosed at 14, Scott has been facing the challenges of diabetes for 10 years and his entire career through from the amateur level into first team action.
In recent years, Scott has cemented himself as a key member of the Hull FC squad but he faces challenges no one else does.
Scott has now opened up about living with diabetes for near enough a decade.
“I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was fourteen, so it’s coming up to the ten year anniversary,” he told hullfc.com.
“It was over a four month period that I noticed something wasn’t quite right. I started losing weight without being able to explain why, or I would often feel fatigued. I would start drinking water all of the time, which was really abnormal because I didn’t usually drink as much as that. I would wake up about four to six times a night, and that was the endless cycle I found myself in all of the time.
“I went down from being about eleven stone to seven stone in a pretty short space of time whilst I was still a teenager, so I knew something wasn’t right and I got a GP appointment. I had a blood test where my vein collapsed and I also had a ketone test – the nurse said it was just down to an infection.
“I ended up going back two days later and I got an admittance note from my GP, saying it should have never got to that stage. So then, I spent a week in hospital once I had been diagnosed.”
He revealed a recent paramedic scare during the off-season as he underlined the challenges he still faces today.
“I had a bit of an issue quite recently in the off-season. I went to bed one night as normal, but I woke up at 4am with a drip attached to me and two paramedics standing at the end of my bed because I had fallen unconscious,” he said.
“There have been incidents during training or in games where my sugars have suddenly gone very high and that’s lead to severe cramping.
“It’s difficult because adrenaline is quite a big thing in sport and adrenaline has quite a big effect on sugars. So staying on top of my sugars and keeping them in range is what brings the best out of my performance.
“Unfortunately it’s something that is just so unpredictable and you never really know when an episode is around the corner. It’s something that people are still researching and working on.
“Obviously there’s a lot of protein shakes involved with being a professional athlete, and they often contain a lot of carb content. The same goes for pre-workout. They can have the effect of raising sugar levels. Over the last couple of years, I’ve really looked closely at the supplements I take, just making sure I’m managing my levels as best as possible.”
