Michelle Visage opens up her battle with Hashimoto’s disease : ‘My hair fell out in clumps and I was having hardcore panic attacks’

RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage has opened up about her battle with Hashimoto’s disease which caused her hair to fall out in clumps, skin to crack and induced panic attacks.

Michelle Visage, who is known for her tough critiques on RuPaul’s Drag Race and her no nonsense attitude, will now see the roles reversed as she becomes one of the contestants on Strictly Come Dancing 2019, paired with her professional partner Giovanni Pernice.

Despite her upbeat appearance the star only recently underwent a biopsy following a 20-year battle with Hashimoto’s disease, which is a condition where your immune system attacks your thyroid, and has opened about her condition in an exclusive interview with OK! magazine, describing how the condition affected her life.

“My skin was crackly dry and my hair fell out in clumps. I was also having hardcore panic attacks,” the ex-popstar revealed. The radio presenter said that the cause of her condition were her breast implants, which she got at age 21 and had for 30-years before getting them removed to prevent the condition coming back.

She explained: “My journey goes back to me getting breast implants at the age of 21. My body couldn’t fight off the attacker [which Michelle believes was her breast implants] because it was there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “After 30 years of having breast implants and 20 years of suffering with Hashimoto’s, not one doctor told me what it could be.

“So, I found a Facebook group where over 50,000 women who had the same symptoms from their breast implants and started a documentary on my journey with Breast Implant Illness, before getting them removed. “Since having them removed the thyroid nodule is going down, which is amazing.”

Michelle had a biopsy in August, after it was requested by a doctor, and was worried that at first it could be cancer. “It’s not cancer, thank God. My thyroid had doubled in size over the past two years and my doctor told me I had to have a biopsy before I began Strictly. “I got the report the day I was coming to England for Strictly and it was benign.”

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After getting the all clear from the doctors, the Drag Queen judge turned her full attention to the dance show, saying she’s excited to get involved with the glam of it, and hopes the experience will give her more body confidence. “I’m no stranger to glam. I have a feeling that after Strictly I’ll gain more body confidence. I’ve had two C-sections and I don’t love my mid section, so I don’t want to show that off, not at 50. But I love who I am,” she said.

She added that she was thrilled with being paired with Giovanni as they are “literally the same person.”

“I’m so happy! We are literally the same person. We look really good together and he lets me make fun of him. He’s tall and strict – I need that.” she said.

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Strictly Come Dancing 2019

Michelle has also stated that she has bonded with Giovnani’s girlfriend and fellow American and girl band member Ashley Roberts, from the Pussycat Dolls, who has been dating Giovanni since the end of 2018 after meeting on the show. She said about the star: "I met Ashley at the launch show and she was so sweet and so fun! "I told her I needed to borrow her man for a few months and she handed the Italian reins over!

"There’s about 127 years between our bands, but if you can survive a girl group you can survive anything!"

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