Former Emmerdale star Adam Thomas has opened up about being diagnosed with a ‘tough’ second condition after his life was changed by painful athritis. The 36-year-old actor spoke on This Morning about his ‘challenging’ battle with athritis and revealed the condition had also sparked psoriasis.
The chronic skin condition, which causes inflamed, scaly patches of skin, left him struggling on the set of the ITV soap. He told hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley that he had suffered with the condition ‘all over my body’ and especially in his scalp.
Adam said following his lengthy journey to be diagnosed with inflammatory athritis: “You also get psoriasis. I had it all over my body and mainly my scalp. It’s quite tough when you’re working in the television industry. Make up were picking bits of my hair.”
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Adam also reflected on his lengthy journey to be diagnosed with athritis after being in constant pain and struggling to walk. He said: “I got an injury on my knees and I couldn’t walk for weeks. It just wasn’t getting better.”
The Emmerdale star then woke up one morning and thought he had ‘broken my wrists it was so painful’. But when X-Rays showed no broken bones, he was sent for a MRI scan which also showed no concerns.
He was then sent to a rheumatoid specialist and was finally diagnosed. The Strictly Come Dancing star said: “That was the most challenging bit because I was in so much pain and and nobdy was really giving me any answers. So not only mentally but physically that was draining.”
He added: “It just came out of nowhere. Looking back now my dad was in quite a lot of pain and I just don’t think he ever spoke about it.
“But it is hereditary, that’s what worries me the most – my kids might get this one day. I’m doing everything I can to find a blueprint now so if it does happen I can pass that on.”
He also spoke about the tough side effects his athritis medication has had, saying: “There was a medication I was on…which is basically like a short dose of chemotherapy and as you can imagine the side effects to that were really challenging. I was just being sick and fatigued and drowsy all the time.
“So that was challenging trying to work. It’s been a long journey but I’m starting to see the light.”
Adam revealed he has totally changed his diet to the restrictive carnivore diet, crediting it with improving his painful symptoms. He said he now only eats eggs and meat.
He said: “Diet is main thing he’s doing now…A couple of weeks in to me trying the carnivore diet, my life changed. Genuinely my knees got a little less tighter, the swelling in my fingers went down.
“I started that just before Christmas…meat and eggs – that’s all I have now.” He added: “I decided to come off all my medication – Iknow it’s probably not the right thing to do, but I just wanted to do this as naturally as possible and if it doesnt work then I can go back to my medication.”