Melissa Suffield has revealed how a two year mystery illness resulted in dramatic weight loss ‘against her will’ and a battle with ‘anxiety and loneliness’.
The former EastEnders actress, 31, took to Instagram to mark two years since her symptoms began and said she’d spent £20K on medical bills which resulted in a diagnosis of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).
Melissa Suffield, who played Lucy Beale in the soap from 2004 until 2010, has previously shared candid insight into her health woes with fans as well as displaying her three stone weight loss in social media snaps.
SIBO is a condition where too many bacteria normally found in the large intestine grow and flourish in the small intestine, fermenting food and causing symptoms like bloating abdominal pain and diarrhoea.
Taking to Instagram earlier this month Melissa Suffield penned: ‘Today is a tough day, this day 2 years ago, me and River for sick with whatever infection that gave me SIBO.
‘From the next day onward, I was symptomatic, and I have been basically unwell ever since. I replay that day in my head to often. what if we hadn’t one on the train that day. what if we hadn’t eaten out what if we had stayed at home’.
Melissa Suffield continued: ‘How different would my life look right now. I wouldn’t have lost over three stone against my will,’
‘I wouldn’t have spent over £20,000 searching for answers and the magic remedy that would make me feel better. I wouldn’t have been more lovely more anxious than I’ve ever been before’.
‘I wouldn’t be worried about travelling more than a mile from my home. the very core of who i am as a person wouldn’t have been altered’
‘I don’t like to swell on the past in this way because it really isn’t helpful, it on days like today, crap anniversaries it’s really hard not to’.
But looking on the bright side Melissa then said she was ‘reframing’ the situation and listed the positives following her diagnosis.
‘I wouldn’t have learned so much about my digestive system, medicine, and nutrition . I wouldn’t have been able to help literally hundreds of you who tell me about your SIBO diagnoses solely from learning about it through my content’.
Melissa Suffield continued: ‘I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to bang he drum and raise awareness for the many people out there who suffer with very little guidance. I wouldn’t have learned just how strong I can be.
‘So ultimately, as much as I wish this hadn’t happened to me, you bery your ass I’m going to use it as a force for good’.
Melissa previously got candid about how the chronic disease affects her on a daily basis, revealing she is now ‘less healthy’ than before.
Admitting ‘nothing’ about the ‘frustrating’ condition has been through choice, Melissa said she currently wears her pre-pregnancy jeans.
‘But there’s no joy. I don’t enjoy the fact that that’s happened at all in the way that you know, that’s like a goal for a lot of people,’ she told The Sun.
‘It was never a goal for me. But B, this is the complete antithesis of whatever I’ve ever wanted with my body.’
The media personality admitted the chronic illness has significantly affected her skin and hair health.
‘What it [losing weight because of SIBO] has helped me do is prove the point that I’ve always, always made, which is that you cannot define how healthy someone is, by how much they weigh, or how fat you think they look or whatever it is that you think you know,’ she said.
The mother-of-one remarked she is ‘more of a burden on the NHS’ at the present moment, than when she ‘was bigger last year’.
She didn’t shy away from detailing the gruelling commutes to the hospital and reaching 40 GP visits only within this year, while being ‘bounced around from this department to this department’.
The former actress bluntly added she has spent an ‘obscene amount of money on prescriptions’ and stressed to raise awareness that ‘thinner doesn’t mean you’re healthier’ – a concept she frequently raised on her social media platforms as well.