A trip to the GP can often lead to the revelation of the more personal aspects of your life. Don’t worry, we’ve all cringed at the prospect of “too much information”. But how much do you know about your doc? When Irish Country Living interviewed Dr Nina Byrnes, we got a little excited at the prospect of asking the personal questions. And Nina is certainly a lady who wears her heart on her sleeve.

Telltale signs

“My face hides nothing,” she smiles. “The camera guys couldn’t stop laughing at my expression when we were observing some of the families on Doctor in the House.

TV3’s show follows six unhealthy families, as they face the reality of their health issues and embark on an eight-week journey to improve their lives.

“The amount of takeaways was very worrying and then there was my utter confusion at what a spice box was. I mean, I really wasn’t expecting a Chinese to come in a pizza box. And of course, in series one last year when we visited students in Athlone and found E. coli in the microwave, my face showed nothing but dismay.”

However, Nina is keen to highlight that although she may be shocked, she doesn’t judge. “I have a huge amount of respect for the families that let these cameras into their house and life. It takes a lot of courage not only to go on the show but to make these changes and turn your health around.”

Tired all the time

Obesity, diabetes, infertility and heart disease were all high on the agenda last year, with many coming to the fore again in series two. However, this year there is also a real focus on little things that can make a big difference.

“Tired all the time (TATT) is a complaint I hear from patients in my clinic day in, day out. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you don’t find anything particularly wrong with people’s bloods and when I say this, sometimes, they are strangely upset.

“They want to know that they are tired because of something like anaemia, for example, because then you can find a solution. However, when I say you may need to look at what you’re eating, your sleep or exercise, that’s not as tangible and harder to tackle than just taking medication.

“In this series, though, you really see that even eight weeks of change can make a huge difference to energy levels,” says Nina.

Living with diabetes

More serious issues were also highlighted. “We found one of our patients really wasn’t managing his diabetes properly, ignoring the fact that he had to eat relatively healthily and exercise. You can’t just take medication and think it will sort everything, but managing this condition has to realistic to the patient.

“My father-in-law has type 2 diabetes. He is a country man and loves his spuds, bread and butter. When I told him he had to cut back on potatoes and white bread and eat more veg and meat, he said to me, ‘I might as well stop eating so.’

“To him, there would be no pleasure from food without those things. It was a real moment for me, because I said: ‘Nina you can sit here and give all the advice, but it has to be real to the person.’ They have to feel that this is something they can do and benefit from, and I think it was a turning point for me as a doctor.”

Small changes, big difference

Delivering the hard facts is one thing but delivering bad news is a whole different ball game. “That’s why I am so supportive of lifestyle medicine-diet, exercise and sleep. Because I have been there and seen a 60-year-old who had a stroke and he would change everything in the morning if he could.

“I’ll never forget it, he had a very high-powered job, travelling all over the world, making plenty of money. On paper, life looked great, but it changed overnight. The tears were pouring down his cheeks, and when you’ve been there and seen people at the moment their life changes, you would do everything you can to try and prevent it.

“That’s why doctors are so passionate about saying to people: ‘Look, please look after your blood pressure because we’ve seen what is it like when people face that awful day when they have a stroke or heart attack.’

“It doesn’t even need to be that dramatic. People who carry extra weight in their younger years are prone to arthritis, but one day you might become a grandparent and want to take your grandkids for a walk. Lifestyle change is not about living for ever, it’s about being able to do things you want to do at different stages of your life,” Nina explains.

GloHealth

However, Nina is quick to hold up her hands and say she isn’t perfect herself. “I’m not even going to try and pretend we’re the model family. I preach a lot about work-life balance, but it really is something I could do much better.” As well as working full-time and filming Doctor in the House she was working with GloHealth on their “Mothers are Amazing” campaign.

“It’s something I wanted to get involved in, because I really see it as complimentary to the GP service. Phone or online doctors can’t replace the GP, because they can’t examine patients, but I did an out-of-hours service in Navan recently and it was so busy. I saw 25 patients in four hours.

“So if it’s 2am and you have a sick child and can’t decide whether to get them out of the bed and take them to a busy out-of-hours service or wait until the morning, at least there is someone on the other end of the phone to help. It beats Googling anyway.”

Stay-at-home dad

The campaign did get a bit of backlash, however, with people saying it’s not just the mothers who stay up with a sick child, dads do too, and no better person to confirm that than Nina.

“My husband Dean is a stay-at-home dad with our three children: Alex (13), Luke (11) and Ed (2). I really think Dean has the harder job in our house. He is on call 24/7. He is so busy, but the kids love it. When we made the decision, we were both working, with two kids in crèche. We had no quality of life, they had no quality of life and we said: ‘Is this what we really want?’ Dean was willing to stay at home and it’s worked great for us.”

He also has a home-cooked meal on the table when Nina gets home. “We try to keep away from processed and pre-prepared meals, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have treats. We’re all going to have our days when we have pizza, but we try to cook our own rather than takeaway.

“I suppose I do try to make the kids aware of portion sizes, so if we have a family bag of Minstrels, we don’t sit down with the whole bag open and eat the full thing. We’ll take three or four and then I’ll put it back in the fridge. If they ask for a biscuit, they can have one, but not the whole packet. It’s just about having a healthy attitude to it.

“I definitely don’t want my kids to be obsessed about what’s healthy and what’s not. I love ice-cream. If that’s what you have on a sunny Sunday as a treat, that’s fine. Life is for enjoying as well.”

Doctor in the House is aired on TV3 on Wednesdays at 9pm.

GloHealth has launched GloDoc, a market-leading GP service that provides customers with unlimited video and telephone access to GP services 24 hours’ a day, seven days’ a week at no additional cost.

Photographed in the Radisson Blu, Golden Lane, Dublin 2.