Miranda Hart's health issue that caused her to 'collapse' after shock diagnosis

Miranda Hart revealed that she had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, which caused her to 'collapse' after a decades-long battle with the illness.

Creator of her eponymous BBC One show, the comedian, 51, made the revelation in her new book, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, in which she shared a frank account of the last ten years.

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In the book, she explained that she believes she has been suffering from symptoms of Lyme disease since she was 14 and was officially diagnosed during lockdown.

"Anything I had to do that day would cause extreme fatigue. That's why I eventually collapsed," she explained.

"For me, it was the unnerving neurological symptoms that I initially got, aged fourteen, from Lyme, which I always found particularly hard to deal with. And they got considerably worse as I headed into my forties, as did the fatigue from the cell depletion. Yup, all delightful."

Talking about receiving her diagnosis, she wrote: "I had Zoom calls with two experts who both confirmed – from a delightful smorgasbord of blood tests – that I had been living with constant, reactivated Lyme disease."

She added that she was unable to fully detoxify the disease due to "a gene that increases susceptibility to immune dysfunction and the fact that the disease was never identified at the time."

© David M. Benett

As a result, the comedian says doctors found she had battled Epstein-Barr, glandular fever, herpes, shingles, and 'other nasties I don't care to remember, for they all sounded so awful'.

"I recalled all the times I'd told different doctors, 'I feel toxic and poisoned,' or, 'It's like I have flu every day, but I don't have a temperature.'

"(It's amazing how the body can sometimes literally tell us what's going on.) I felt anger rising at the times I'd been told I must have agoraphobia.

© Dave M. Benett

"I would try to treat it as such, when, as it turned out, it was the lack of energy and the extreme light and sound sensitivity that made my body crash when going out to be in any kind of activity or stimulating environment."

As for how she is feeling now, Miranda told The One Show on Tuesday: "It’s so nice to be back on television, I feel very excited to be here.

"Because once you’ve been bed and housebound with a fatigue-based chronic illness that takes a long time to be diagnosed – which sadly I know a lot of people will relate to – you miss life a lot. So I’m thrilled to be sitting here."

Miranda also revealed the exciting news that she is married. "Someone put a ring on it," she beamed on the show.

© Instagram / @realmirandahart

Adding: "He's my best friend, we have the best fun, and I'm just thrilled to be a young bride at 51."

"The fact that I met someone during a pandemic, during chronic illness when I couldn't get out of bed or leave the house, and I really, really wanted to meet someone... I didn't want to do life on my own any more, and I kind of admitted that to myself. I tell that story in the book.

"The fact that I could meet somebody is not some kind of rom-com story, but it’s hope. There is always hope; things can always change."