Former Dragons’ Den star Norah Casey has revealed she has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes – revealing her worry when she almost passed out while on an Aer Lingus flight.
The former Dancing With The Stars contestant was struck down Covid back in January but never recovered from the virus and was hospitalised four weeks later.
Norah revealed that while in hospital, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
Read More: Former Dragons' Den star Norah Casey rushed to hospital with 'frightening' symptoms of long Covid
Opening up about suffering from long Covid, Norah said: “I had very mild Covid in early January, I even bragged about it being like a bad cold. I worked through it and although I found myself heading to bed earlier that week, I was otherwise ok.
“About four weeks later, I began to feel unwell….I went to my GP and explained what I was feeling… nausea, terrible headaches, breathlessness, jelly legs (best description I could come up with), heart palpitations, dizziness and the shakes.
“When she took my blood pressure, it was critically high – stroke territory, she said.”
The 61-year-old underwent a series of tests and monitoring and eventually became so unwell; she was admitted into hospital a few days after visiting the GP.
“Fairly quickly the consultants felt it was long-covid (or post-covid) because I had inflammation in my lungs and was going through a metabolic crisis,” she told Woman’s Way magazine.
Norah described the pain as someone “playing ping pong with various organs in my body.”
She told how her blood pressure was “sky high” even while she slept before it would drop suddenly a few days later.
She said she was then diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, saying it was “the worst legacy of covid”.
She said she finds herself having to nap in between attending events as her blood sugars have been all over the place.
She also revealed she almost passed out while on an Aer Lingus flight.
“I’ve had a few worrying hypo attacks – most especially on an Aer Lingus plane recently where I was sure I would pass out.
“A wonderful woman who was a member of the cabin crew saw immediately I was in distress – she has a daughter with Type 1 diabetes, and she knew what to do. I am hugely grateful to her.”
A usually confident Norah also told how she’s developed a level of anxiety and would suffer from dry mouth if she had to publicly speak or do radio and TV.
“It doesn’t help that I shake quite a bit and my mouth goes dry,” she said.
But Norah said that while her illness “isn’t even in the ha’penny place compared to others misfortune”, she wanted to tell her story “because so many people have shared with me their own post-covid symptoms.”
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