FORMER Desert Island Discs host Kirsty Young has opened up about her painful health condition in an unprecedented candid interview.
Kirsty, 55, chose to share details of her chronic pain condition fibromyalgia despite admitting she’s pretty “uncomfortable” talking about her health.
The Scottish radio star is best known for helming BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs along with fronting coverage of the BBC’s Platinum Jubilee. However, the pain she experiences as a result of fibromyalgia forced her step away from the airwaves in 2018.
Kirsty was diagnosed with the chronic condition that year, but believes she was suffering with it for a long time before she finally got a diagnosis.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, she spoke about the pain she was experiencing in the lead up to her diagnosis.
“I wasn’t managing,” Kirsty said. “I had it for probably about a year to a year and a half, increasing, it increased over time and the migraines became more, the pain became more, the fatigue became more, so it kind of increased over time before I successfully managed (to get medical advice).”
But when Kirsty first asked a doctor if she might have fibromyalgia, they scoffed in her face.
She recalled them “memorably” dismissed her concerns and telling her it wasn’t a real condition.
“I said ‘I’ve read about this thing called fibromyalgia. Could it be fibromyalgia?’ They actually did snort… She snorted… I said ‘Is that not a thing?’“
“That’s not a thing. That’s where we put people when they don’t have something, just to say they’ve got something,” the doctor responded.
Shocked, Kirsty noted: “I now, of course, realise the depths of that particular medic’s ignorance on the subject.”
According to the NHS, Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body.
When Kirsty finally received her diagnosis, she was finally had a reason for her symptoms and no longer felt like “a crazy lady.”
The BBC broadcaster explained that with fibromyalgia “your pain centre is over-interpreting things that would happen normally in your body,” and also explained symptoms also include brain fog and chronic fatigue.
Describing some of her more severe symptoms, Kirsty said: “I have at my worst felt as though someone has drugged my cup of tea, almost sort of swaying with fatigue, and (I feel like) just having to just opt out of doing anything because the fatigue is almost like cement in your body.”
However, she confirmed that she is “doing okay at the moment” but finds it “very uncomfortable” to talk about her health and admitted she really struggled to come to terms with her diagnosis at first.
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“I think I coped chaotically and badly,” Kirsty revealed.
The married mother-of-two, who also suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which causes pain, swelling and stiffness in the joints, said: “I was hollowed out by it. I remember I just finished recording (an edition) of Desert Island Discs, and it had gone well. I was walking down Regent’s Street in central London and I was standing at the traffic lights. I just had missed the crossing, and I had somewhere to be and I had to get there in time. I just burst into tears.”
Young said this was an example of something that “tipped” her emotions over, and a doctor explained that she would get to the “end of the tunnel.”
Unfortunately, while Kirsty is doing well at the moment, she was forced to give up her job on Desert Island Discs because of the pain.
Nevertheless, she remains in positive spirits and feels “privileged” to still have a comfortable lifestyle without working.
