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Emotional Kéllé Bryan struggles to hold back tears as she opens up on struggles with lupus
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Kéllé Bryan struggled to hold back tears as she opened up about her battle with lupus on Loose Women.
The singer and actress was diagnosed with the auto-immune disease, which causes the body to attack its own healthy cells, in 1998.
Kéllé previously said she was unable to touch her own children in case she picked up an infection, which could have killed her.
Opening up about her experiences on World Lupus Day, Kéllé was emotional when looking back at her experiences with presenters Judi Love, Frankie Bridge, Charlene White and Nadia Sawalha.
‘I don’t tend to watch it, because it’s really painful to watch,’ she said, looking back at footage of her in hospital. ‘It has been a really difficult journey. And it’s not just me that’s going through it.’
‘I got ulcers inside my mouth and started to lose my hair,’ she said about her early symptoms.
‘Eventually, after a very long period of time, I was diagnosed just in time and then treatment started.’
On her road to recovery, the singer added: ‘I’ve had to learn to speak and to walk again. I had cerebral lupus, which basically meant a swelling on my brain. And then I had a seizure.’
‘I lost about three days of my life that I don’t remember at all. I was awake, and I was very much functioning, but I don’t remember it at all.’
The 46-year-old Hollyoaks star also spoke about ‘the frustrations of not being able to be around my children because they were a risk to me’.
Discussing the nature of the condition and urging others affected to seek help, she added: ‘Lupus is a blood disease that affects the white blood cells. So instead of fighting infection, which is what white blood cells are supposed to do, they fight the body itself. It’s kind of like your body attacking itself.
‘If you do get a rash, or you feel like you’ve been overtired or you’ve got sore joints and nothing seems to make sense to you, it’s not necessary that it is lupus, but I would encourage you to go out and double check with your GP.’
Her fellow Loose Women stars praised Kéllé for speaking so openly and celebrated the fact she was doing so well on the programme.
Meanwhile, Kéllé Bryan also recently spoke about tackling racism in her important unconscious bias storyline on Hollyoaks, saying that many people don’t realise they’re guilty of micro racist behaviours.
Loose Women airs on weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV.
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