Miranda Hart reveals battle with Lyme disease that left her bedridden

Miranda Hart has described how suffering from Lyme disease has affected her entire adult life and at one point left her bedridden.

The comedian and TV star, best known for BBC sitcom Miranda, has opened up about being diagnosed with the debilitating disease after years of wondering what was wrong with him.

The 51-year-old woman said she became unwell at age 15 and her illness progressed to chronic fatigue and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

It culminated in her 40s in a collapse that at its peak left her bedridden, with doctors struggling to diagnose the condition.

“I haven’t felt well since I was 15. It got progressively worse,” she said.

“But yes, since I was 15, I would say that I have never had all the energy. I never felt refreshed after a night’s sleep.

“I could never … see people going out after work or going to a party, and then going to school and thinking, how do you do that?

“I felt quite weak all the time and also very strange neurological sensations, which the doctors could not explain, they did all kinds of tests.

“But yeah, I’ve never felt good.”

The star, who recently revealed she was secretly married, was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival to promote her new book, I Haven’t Been Completely Honest With You.

At one point, doctors told him there was nothing wrong, but he was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that can be transmitted to humans by infected ticks.

“In my case, my level of illness, it was never acute, I wasn’t going to collapse and die there, thankfully,” he said.

“But I kept telling the doctors, I know I’m leading a middle life, I’m leading a very debilitated life but not understanding why.

“And it was almost like he kept saying, eventually, as the years went by, I said, if this was a condition with a name and this is how you manage it, then I could handle it, I could dig.

“I think the hardest thing about these types of fatigue-based conditions, wherever they come from, is the lack of understanding, the lack of ever knowing when there’s an end date, or a management plan.”

Miranda said a doctor told her in 2007 she might have chronic fatigue and suggested she take six months off work, which she said she couldn’t do as her career was starting to take off.

“It wasn’t clear what chronic fatigue was or what I was supposed to do, so I kept going. I was doing well, but I had to manage my energy really well.

“I think at one point when I was writing Miranda I had a virus or something every six weeks.

“I was against it, like waiting to be treated.”

He told the audience that after completing Miranda’s final set he collapsed on the living room floor from exhaustion, which he described as “massive relief”.

“So actually when I collapsed, I was able to say, ‘I can’t go on.’ There was a massive relief,” he said.

‘My body stopped me, and I remember being aware enough, so to speak, to say, “This has to be the beginning, this has to be, this is going to be my turning point.”

He explained that, to put it simply, he has ME caused by Lyme disease.

“Some really smart experts finally joined the dots when I started to feel bad was when I was living in a Lyme hot spot in Virginia in America, when my dad was working out there,” he said.

“So, and I remember I had the flu there, which was very peculiar, and I didn’t recover for many years, and we just connected the dots.

“So I lived with reactivated Lyme since I was 15, which then wreaks havoc on your immune system, disrupts your immune system, then whatever other virus you have, it’s very hard to recover from that, so other viruses reactivate, then shingles reactivated in me, and later only…

“So it’s like having the flu all the time. With the flu, you sleep, but you feel like you’ve never slept.

“It is, but they still tell you nothing’s wrong and you have to go on. It’s not fun.

Earlier this year, Miranda thanked fans for their support after revealing she had put on weight due to her illness.

The Call The Midwife actress said: “I’m actually very proud of the fact that I’ve shed a lot of shame about my weight gain, not because I don’t think bigger is beautiful, but because it is.” I feel very uncomfortable.’

She added in the caption of her video: “I’ve found it incredibly difficult not to feel ashamed of my weight gain over the past three years.

“Not to fight for an aesthetic ideal, but because it doesn’t represent me or who I am naturally.

‘But life happens. The disease passes. And it’s a great way to keep focusing on the ultimate healer: self-compassion. If I lose him or not I know that I am loved. Tranquility

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