It’s been 15 1/2 years since the Steelers ended a long drought by winning One for the Thumb in Super Bowl XL. Few outside their organization knew just how difficult that was for three of them.

Hall of Fame guard Alan Faneca went through his career taking pills morning, noon and night to help control his epilepsy. Fellow starting guard Kendall Simmons constantly took painful shots in his belly before and during games to control his diabetes. And the inhaler that Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis used to ward off his asthma was near the Steelers’ bench every game.

The opponents that day in 2006 in Detroit were the Seattle Seahawks, but Faneca, Simmons and Bettis fought against tougher foes during their playing days and still do.

“We were like a walking pharmacy in one regard,” Bettis said recently from his home in Atlanta. “It is crazy when you think about what each guy was dealing with, obviously all life-threatening issues.”

“Let me tell you,” says Simmons, an offensive line coach at his alma mater, Auburn, “when I did my diabetes speaking, that was one of the main points I made with people that helped get me through what I had to deal with. One of my best friends had epilepsy. He took his medicine consistently. If not, he would have a seizure and had to deal with that. And I watched Jerome have an asthma attack and have to use an inhaler, and this guy’s a Hall of Fame running back.”

They all supported each other but none openly dwelt on his physical ailment nor talked much about it with coaches or teammates.

“They didn’t use that as an excuse or something that hindered them as players,” said Hines Ward, who became a wide receivers coach this year at Florida Atlantic. “They overcame. You talk about dealing with adversity, all of those guys had to deal with that as well as play in the NFL. Even though they had adversity in their personal lives, they never showed it at work or on the football field. They just dealt with it and moved along accordingly. They are a true inspiration for others who have the same illness: You can overcome and get the job done and not use it as an excuse to be successful.”

Said Bettis, “As an athlete, I didn’t think of my asthma (as a hindrance). I thought of it as something I had to deal with. I deal with it and that will be that. When you look at other players, you assume everybody has some kind of issue they’re dealing with because it’s life.”

Faneca, like Ward and Simmons, coaches football. He became head coach at Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Va., this year after previously coaching the offensive line there. His epilepsy did not prevent him from playing 13 years in the NFL, a career in which he missed just two games, one because coach Bill Cowher rested him and other starters in a meaningless finale for the Steelers. Faneca will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 8, joining Bettis, who was inducted in 2015.

Few in the public even knew Faneca had epilepsy, which was diagnosed when he was 15. It took time to find the proper doses of medication.

“I walked to school in my pajamas one day,” Faneca said of one epileptic event. “I felt like I was late for school. One of my buddies stopped me and said what are you doing? I snapped out of it, walked home, got dressed and walked back to school.”

He received his doctor’s OK to continue to play football and never had a seizure while playing. He took two pills three times a day and still does.

Simmons’ routine to control his disease was more complicated and varied. The Steelers drafted him in the first round in 2002, and he was diagnosed with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) in 2003. His normal playing weight plunged from 315 pounds.

“When the diabetes hit Kendall, it got him hard,” Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said. “That camp he showed up he might have been down to 260 when they first found it. He didn’t see it coming.”

Simmons started all 16 games that 2003 season after his initial diagnosis. He missed 2004 with an injury, then started every game of their 2005 Super Bowl season. He played for the Steelers into 2008 when another injury limited him to four games. He played for two more teams in 2009 and then retired.

He would check his blood sugar level about 10 times before, during and after games. It was a constant battle to keep his level steady, not let it get too low or too high. It took him four or five seasons before he realized that the adrenaline of gameday was spiking his blood sugar. He tried to purposely keep it low before the game because it would rise as the game wore on.

“The excitement of the game, the stress, all of that stuff kept my blood sugar high,” Simmons said.

“And the higher it got, the slower my reaction. I didn’t have the same strength or stamina. I would get tired faster. So it would be a constant battle. I had to take eight to 10 shots a game. I sometimes would take too much and bottom out. And I would be on the sideline crashing. I would have to eat a whole bunch of (designated gels) to get it back up and get back on the field.”

All the while, he thought, “I can’t afford to crash out on the field.”

On the sideline, line coach Russ Grimm would be making assignment adjustments and “I would be taking a shot, through my jersey, right in my belly,” Simmons said.

“It was a struggle, it really was.”

But …

“We had guys on that team dealing with stuff outside of football,” Simmons said. “I was like, You don’t have to sit here and pity yourself. They were still playing at a high level and doing what they need to do and there is no reason why I can’t either.”

Asthma did not slow Bettis much, but there were a few occasions during games that it did. The first time was a 1 p.m. game in Jacksonville on Sept. 1, 1996, Bettis’ first in a Steelers uniform.

“Jacksonville was the time when I had a really bad situation,” Bettis said. “It was super humid and it was just bad and I was struggling to breathe.”

Another time was the AFC Championship Game in Denver in the 2005 season.

“The high altitude was rough,” Bettis said. “I came in, I’d have a run, come in and go back out. I played in that game much differently than any other game.”

Bettis ran 15 times for 39 yards against the Broncos, splitting time with Willie Parker, who ran 14 times for 35 yards. Ben Roethlisberger, the passing game and the Steelers defense provided the firepower for a 34-17 victory to deliver Bettis, Faneca and Simmons to Detroit for Super Bowl XL. There, Parker and game MVP Hines Ward were the stars. But Faneca pulled from his left and threw the key block that sprung Parker on his record 75-yard touchdown run around the right, where Simmons also had a block at right guard.

The Steelers were driven by the inspiration of The Bus (Bettis) and their desire to get him to end his career with a Super Bowl victory in Detroit, his hometown, which they did. They beat the Seahawks 21-10, and Ward proclaimed famously in the Disney TV commercial as the game’s MVP that “I’m going to Disney World, and I’m taking The Bus.”

That long journey was difficult enough as the Steelers became the first sixth seed to win a Super Bowl, playing four postseason games on the road. Few knew the additional difficulties that Alan Faneca, Jerome Bettis and Kendall Simmons faced to accomplish it.

“This was the kind of unselfishness and the kind of guys we had,” Cowher said of that trio. “We had to at times protect them from themselves. They were among our best workers. They wanted to be out there for practice and every game. There were times we had to make sure we pulled them off because it wasn’t in their best interest.”

Said Bettis, “You look back at it and say wow that was an interesting triangle in terms of issues that we had to manage. You don’t think about it (at the time). Every now and then I’d think, man, I’m a running back with asthma. That doesn’t make sense. The running is going to be a problem, but that’s my job. It’s just one of those things that as players you downplay your individual issues. If that would have been mentioned leading up to the Super Bowl week, guys would have just shrugged it off and not thought much about it because of the team goal.

“You don’t think about it then, but now you look back on it and think we were a group that found a way.”

(Photo of Jerome Bettis: Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images)