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Ten-time Olympic medalist Gary Hall Jr (48) says he does not have the memory of being titled the world’s fastest swimmer at the 2000 Summer Olympics, held in Sydney. He watched his big victory moment on TV like an audience. Hall Jr took part in the competition after his diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in March 1999 and suffered a severe hypoglycemia episode.
“I was swimming the last leg of the 4×100 freestyle relay, and I don’t know why my sugar levels dropped tremendously. I finished the race and was in the warm-down pool (it helps recover from neuromuscular fatigue) when my memory started to get fuzzy. At that point, my sugar level was 23 mg/dL. I don’t remember the medal ceremony where they play the national anthem, raise the flag and give you a gold medal to recognize you for this incredible accomplishment,” he tells Happiest Health.
He was at the peak of his swimming career when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 24. He had developed excessive thirst, hunger, dizziness, and blurry vision, and had lost 20 pounds. His doctors told him that it was the end of his swimming career, and it was impossible to compete in the Olympics.
Swimming with diabetes
Swimming was not just his passion, but also his career. “Being told you have a chronic condition that will potentially lead to a long list of severe complications like blindness, lower limb amputation, circulatory problems, stroke and kidney failure, was depressing. It took me some time to wrap my head around what diabetes is and how it can be controlled,” he says.
As his father is an ophthalmologist and was seeing cases of retinopathy, a diabetes complication, he was well aware of the condition. He got in touch with endocrinologist, Dr Anne Peters, and her team treated Hall Jr and encouraged him to compete. One-and-a-half years later, he stood at the medal podium for his gold medal at the Olympics. “I could not have made it back to competing and swimming without her,” he says.
Though he was unsure of competing initially, he wanted to do it to help inspire other children with the same condition. “Since my diagnosis, I’ve heard stories about kids being told that they couldn’t be on a sports team or go for sleepovers because they have type 1 diabetes. Even if they were part of a sports team, the coach would treat them as a liability and the kid would mostly be found sitting on a bench during the practice or game. That’s a shame and I wanted to help stop that,” he says.
Challenges in sports
There are challenges to swimming with type 1 diabetes. The endorphins, adrenaline, and the stress response of having to perform in front of others, send blood sugars through the roof. “My objective was to stay hyper-focused while swimming with diabetes. I was testing my blood sugar furiously about 20 times a day, at least every hour through finger prick blood tests, up until five minutes before the competition. I could then say, “I’ve done everything that I can and put the whole thing aside for the next five minutes when I had to go do my race,” he shares.
Hall Jr says he has no family history of type 1 or type 2 diabetes and there has been no mysterious deaths or misdiagnosis of any condition in his family for generations. As an athlete, he was always paying attention to nutrition as well. “I had to do the carb counting and try to figure out the insulin dose accordingly. So, there were certain things that really shocked me in that trial-and-error learning process, like the amount of carbs even in small amounts of white rice,” he says.
Not too long after the diagnosis, he had to go to McDonald’s with a team of 15 swimmers during a travel. “As I couldn’t find a healthy option, I got an egg McMuffin for breakfast. And I had to give myself so much insulin, way more than for a big plate of pasta,” he recalls.
Currently a resident of Los Angeles, Hall Jr is now managing his diabetes by regularly monitoring his blood glucose levels and visiting his endocrinologist Dr Peters at least once every six months. Since he’s been diagnosed, he hasn’t had a single sign of any diabetes complications, he says with a proud smile.
Extending support through the diabetes community
Hall Jr is now part of several diabetes communities that are helping to change the outlook of people and break the stigma associated with the condition. He is also part of diabetes research groups. He is hopeful that one day, there could be a cure for type 1 diabetes. “There have been tremendous advancements in regenerative medicine which can help replenish the beta cells or create a supply of beta cells or rewire the immune system so that it doesn’t recognize them as bad cells and kill them off. I’m very encouraged and believe that this will ultimately lead to a cure,” he says.
Hence, his message to people with diabetes is to not feel discouraged and give up as it can cause irreparable damage that one can’t recover from. Encouraging to open up more about the condition, he also says not to be ashamed of it or blame oneself or the family for having it.
