TV star Dominic Littlewood in battle for life

Oct 4 2009 by Diane Parkes, Sunday Mercury

He is known as the cheeky chap who battles for consumer rights. But, as DIANE PARKES discovers, Dominic Littlewood once had to battle for life, and now faces a daily medical routine.

TELEVISION presenter Dominic Littlewood was just ten when he nearly died.

He was on holiday in Devon with his family when his mum realised he was seriously ill – but help came almost too late.

“I became very ill, my weight had dropped to under four stone and I started to drink copious amounts of anything,” says Dominic, who fronts consumer rights programmes such as Don’t Get Done, Get Dom.

“As a baby I wouldn’t drink milk. When I suddenly started drinking it, my mum knew it was something serious.

“She thought I had leukaemia and didn’t want me to go into hospital in Devon. She insisted my dad pack everything up and we drove back.

“It was 1976 and that really hot summer so the drive back was just terrible. I was drifting in and out of consciousness and wasn’t eating so my mum kept feeding me grapes to try to give me some food.”

But the grapes were only making the situation worse.

“When I got home the doctor came out and he diagnosed constipation and left some horrible stuff for me to take,” says Dom. “But my mum was very shrewd and knew it wasn’t that. She took me straight to A&E.”

There, doctors told Dominic’s family that his pancreas had stopped working – and he was suffering from insulin-dependent diabetes. His sugar had risen so high his life was in the balance.

“They kept me in hospital and I had a drip in each arm,” he recalls. “The doctor said that I almost died that night.”

At just 10 years old Dominic’s world was turned upside down. From that moment onwards he had to undergo blood sugar tests and injections every day as well as monitoring everything he ate or drank.

And he admits it wasn’t easy.

“In those days you had this huge glass syringe and massive stainless steel needles,” he says. “It made an awful bruise every time you did it. I was covered in bruises.

“Nobody talked about it so no-one knew what it was.

“I remember during one school holiday being out with my mum and we met a girl from my school. My mum was telling her dad about my diabetes and the girl ran off because she thought it was contagious.”

Diabetes is not contagious but there is no cure, so Dominic had to face up to its daily reality whether he liked it or not.

“I was no angel and I rebelled against it when I was a teenager,” he recalls.

“I think a lot of teenagers do. You just want to be the same as everyone else. You don’t want to be the kid who is different.

“When I was first told I had diabetes the nurses told me that I might grow out of it and my pancreas might start working. I don’t know why they said that – maybe they thought that was better.

“So I always had this dream that one day it would all be all right. Then, one day, they had to tell me the truth.”

But Dominic, now 44, learned to live with it.

“You don’t have any choice but to accept it,” he says. “As I started to mature I just said to myself that diabetes was a condition I had to live with. I had to stop moaning and just live as normal a life as I could.”

And so he did.

Dominic first entered the world of television with the show Faking It, teaching a vicar to become a second-hand car salesman in a month.

From there he went on to become a consumer rights avenger exposing dodgy workmen in Cowboy Builders and offering top tips in Wrong Car Right Car and To Buy or Not to Buy.

Currently working on a new series of Don’t Get Done, Get Dom and a frequent face on The One Show with local boy Adrian Chiles, Dominic says there is no reason for his diabetes to stop him doing what he wants to do in life.

“I have extreme respect for my diabetes but I don’t let it control me,” he says. “I still get hypos but they don’t go to extremes. I have got to know when my blood sugar levels are not quite right and if I start to feel that then I do a blood check.

“It isn’t easy in my job because I never know where I am going to be one day to the next or what I am going to be doing. I spend a lot of time on trains and you can’t always get proper food. I have to rely on crisps and chocolate sometimes.

“If I worked a regular nine-to-five job it would be a lot easier to control but the one advantage is that these days you are never far away from something to eat if you need it.”

That’s not to say Dominic always gets it right.

Two years ago he was a contestant in the television series Strictly Come Dancing where he was partnered with Lilia Kopylova. The sudden increase in exercise levels played havoc with Dominic’s blood sugar levels.

“I had a really busy workload at that time and was doing a lot of exercise, and then there was all that dancing,” he recalls. “They video you every time you are training. One of the days, the girl behind the camera suddenly asked me if I was feeling OK.

“I said I was fine. But she said: ‘Look, just do me a favour and check your blood levels for me.’ So I did, and found that my levels were really low. If I hadn’t checked, a major attack would have started.

“After I sorted it out I asked her: ‘How did you know?’ She said it was because it was the only time that my dancing had been good!

“When your levels are low it’s like you are really relaxed and that meant I was dancing better. I thought it was really funny.”

Sadly, Dominic’s dancing failed to impress the judges on the show and he was shown the door in the fifth round. But Strictly is only one of the many challenges he has set himself.

“I have had this condition – I call it a condition not a disease – for 34 years and I have never let it stop me doing things I want to,” he says.

“I can do everything with the exception of hold a private pilot’s licence. There is nothing else I cannot do. And I make sure that I do them. Diabetes will not ruin my life.”

Dominic is a firm believer there will be breakthroughs in research.

“I personally think that one day – and that day will not be that far off – people will find a cure. I keep up on the various research and there are so many developments taking place all the time.

“I would hope it will be within my lifetime but even if it isn’t, they will find it.”

* Dominic is supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk to Cure Diabetes, which is taking place today at Drayton Manor Park, near Tamworth, Staffordshire.

Hundreds of walkers are participating in the event and organisers are hoping to top last year’s total of £114,000. To find out more about how to support JDRF see the www.jdrf.org.uk website.

FACTFILE

* Type 1 diabetes is caused by the body’s pancreas not producing insulin.

* The pancreas is believed to stop producing insulin as an auto-immune response possibly triggered by a viral or other infection which damages its insulin-producing cells.

* Type 1 diabetes affects around 350,000 people in the UK, 25,000 of them children.

* A number of injections of insulin every day are necessary to maintain the body’s blood sugar levels.

* Diet also needs to be adjusted to ensure insulin levels do not rise too high or fall too low.

* Insulin levels are monitored by constant blood checks.

* The condition happens suddenly, in most cases in childhood, and there is no cure.

* If type 1 diabetes is not managed correctly it can cause complications such as kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, nerve damage and blindness.

* Type 1 diabetes, known as insulin-dependent, is different from type 2 diabetes, known as late-onset.

* Type 2 tends to affect older people and can often be managed by diet and exercise, although it can develop into type 1.