Roxy Horner has spoken candidly about the continued impact having diabetes has on her and her loved ones.
The model’s world was turned upside down when she was diagnosed just before her 30th birthday in 2021 with Type 1 diabetes, a condition that causes a person's blood sugar level to become too high.
Horner, now 32, had taken herself to A&E after feeling something “wasn’t right”, but not realising how serious it was, discharged herself to attend the Brit Awards which her fiancé Jack Whitehall was hosting.
She was forced to face it head-on however, when she later collapsed that evening and had to go back to A&E where she received the life-changing diagnosis.
Speaking to the Standard during Diabetes Awareness Week, she admitted she didn’t know how she would have got through it all without the comedian by her side.
“We met before I got diagnosed so he was there for the whole journey,” she explained.
“It was lockdown when I got diagnosed, I was really sick and didn’t have my family around so he was my rock through it all.
More than five million people in the UK are living with diabetes. Although it can be managed, there is currently no cure and requires huge lifestyle changes, which Horner admits can feel a bit overwhelming at times.
“Jack’s very supportive and I’m forever grateful for that. Sometimes you think ‘I feel like a burden because I’ve got this health condition’, but when you’ve got the right support around you, it’s amazing,” she said.
“There are a lot of stereotypes and I think a lot of people think you have done this to yourself if you’ve got diabetes but that’s generally not the case. It’s something that can just happen to anyone.”
While there is no known history of diabetes in her family, type 1 can be hereditary.
According to the NHS, Type 1 diabetes causes the level of glucose (sugar) in the blood to become too high. It happens when the body cannot produce enough of a hormone called insulin, which controls blood glucose.
It is different to Type 2, which can be caused by lifestyle choices which lead to obesity, such as a poor diet and lack of physical exercise.
Horner and Whitehall welcomed their first child together, a daughter called Elsie, last September.
They will have to wait until Elsie is older to be tested to see if she carries the diabetes gene, and while Horner says “it’s always in the back of my mind”, she will be there to support her daughter if she does.
“I have no idea about the hereditary side but it has obviously crossed my mind. I hope she doesn’t get it but there are new research now that I believe that they can test children now from three-year’s-old to see if they carry a gene for it so of course the moment she’s allowed to do that I will test her. It’s always in the back of my mind, I hope she doesn’t get that.
“At least I will know so much about it. A lot of parents who haven’t had it then have children with it and it must be so difficult for them to then learn this new thing, new disease that they also have to learn to manage as well as their children.”
Horner has teamed with glucose monitoring (CGM) device manufacturer Dexcom for their I Wish You Knew campaign, which looks to shine a light on peoples misconceptions around diabetes.
“I wish other people would know that diabetes is serious and it is a struggle, even if we put on a brave face,” she reflected. “We can still live normal lives and Diabetes doesn’t make us who we are, but it is a part of us. It’s serious, but liveable.”
