Former The Only Way Is Essex star Chloe Meadows has revealed she ignored symptoms of ulcerative colitis for around 10 years due to being scared of doctors.
The 33-year-old reality TV star first noticed blood in her stool, a symptom of the chronic inflammatory bowel condition, when she was 16.
She admitted that the thought of undergoing any medical procedure filled her with dread, causing her to delay seeking medical advice.
“I went to a college where I boarded when I was 16. I was staying away from home and I was living in a student house and there was blood down the toilet”, she told Dr Oscar Duke’s Bedside Manners podcast.
“I remember I told my mum and I was like, there’s quite a lot of blood down the toilet. I’m not really sure what’s going on.
“She was of course like, go to the doctors. I went to the doctors, and they said that I would have to have a colonoscopy, which is a camera into the bowel.”
Meadows added: “At this point in my life, I had never really ever been to the hospital. I’d never been sick.
Ulcerative colitis is a long-term condition where the colon and rectum become inflamed, according to the NHS website.
Symptoms include recurring diarrhoea, which may contain blood, extreme tiredness, loss of appetite and weight loss.
Meadows said she had some health checks aged 26, 10 years after her symptoms appeared, after she went on a diet at a time where she was also losing a lot of blood.
Her mother intervened and said she should go to the doctors and get a blood test as she looked “grey”.
“I’d never had any procedure or operation. I’d never been sedated. I’d never had anything and the doctor referred me and I got this letter, and this is awful, but I got this letter and I just never went to the appointment because I was terrified.
“Then I ignored it and what would happen, which is what I realise now, is that I can go into remission, I can go into a flare-up in remission.
“It would stop for periods of time so that the blood would go away. I’d be like, ‘Oh, cool, it’s gone away, I’m better. There’s nothing wrong with me’.
“I’d go through years where it wouldn’t happen and then it would happen again, and then it would stop again.
“I would probably lie to my mum about how much it would happen because she always pestered me about it and I was like, ‘No, it’s fine’.
“I just got on with it and ignored it. I think I was scared of having any procedure done.
“I was also scared of what they were going to tell me … I was just terrified, which is not really a reason not to go to the doctor, but I think that’s just what I thought.
“I was young as well, so I would forget when there wasn’t blood down the toilet, I would completely forget.”
While she was out filming, after she had the blood tests, Meadows received a number of missed calls from her father who then texted her to say a doctor had advised her she should got straight to A&E because her “blood was so low”.
“I went to the hospital. I had to have all of these checks and these iron infusions and that was where it started,” she said.
Meadows also revealed that she had “probably my longest flare-up” after filming a nerve wracking scene on Towie.
Some people with ulcerative colitis may go for weeks or months with very mild symptoms, or none at all (remission), followed by flare-ups and relapses, according to the NHS website.
Treatment options include corticosteroids, immunosuppressants and surgery.
Marianne Radcliffe, chief executive of the charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK, said: “Chloe Meadows is a fantastic ambassador for us here at Crohn’s & Colitis UK, helping people to understand what it’s really like to live with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.”
The charity says there are more than 300,000 people in the UK living with colitis.
