WWE NXT Superstar, former NXT Tag Team Champion, and former Ring of Honor Wrestling World Champion Kyle O'Reilly recently spoke with Muscle & Fitness about how he has managed to achieve success in the wrestling business while living with type 1 diabetes:

“I was 18 years old, and I had just started my pro wrestling journey. I was in wrestling school and getting to the point where I could start getting booked for matches. But something was off, and I was pretty sick. I was dropping weight, and I was urinating every five minutes, and it felt like there wasn’t enough water on planet earth to quench my first, you know?

“I visited a doctor to get my physical done for wrestling, to get my Washington State wrestling license, and the doctor comes back and asks me if I have type 1 diabetes. I was like, ‘no.’ So that was awkward (laughs). The diagnosis kind of came out of nowhere, but after that, it’s been a blessing in disguise. It keeps me accountable for my own health, and I’m a lot more on top of everything now. Once I was able to get on insulin therapy, I was able to gain the weight back.”

“Hockey legend Bobby Clarke is a type 1 diabetic, and he always says that he never wanted to be looked at as the hockey player with diabetes, you know? He wants to be known as a great hockey player that just happened to have diabetes. And that’s how I look at myself, as a wrestler in NXT. I want to be seen as an awesome wrestler that just happens to be diabetic.”

“Hopefully, I can inspire people that may also be dealing with something like this in their own lives. I would be lying if I said it’s not difficult. On days where I wrestle, my stress levels are up and my cortisol is high. Because my body kind of goes into that ‘fight or flight’ survival mode and releases a lot of sugar (during the match), so I tend to run my insulin levels a little high before and after matches, but I would rather that than the alternative of going low, and being hyper glycemic. We all have good days and bad days as diabetics, but I don’t let one bad day define me, or ruin the next day.”