Miranda Hart’s Battle with Undiagnosed Lyme Disease

Miranda Hart has revealed that she was ‘bedbound’ for years following the end of her eponymous sitcom as she battled with previously undiagnosed Lyme disease.

In a new interview, the actress, 51, who wrapped up filming on Miranda in 2015, told how she struggled to even leave the house and lived a life without ‘joy’ for the best part of a date after it ended.

Miranda eventually suffered with a ‘total collapse’ amid her 30-year battle with the condition, which eventually became myalgic encephalomyelitis – commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

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Speaking to The Times, the comedian explained: ‘I lost my joy and know that I hadn’t enjoyed my career in the way that I knew I could have if I hadn’t been ill.

‘I was housebound and bedbound for years. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a social life. I didn’t have any responsibilities or identities.’

Miranda Hart has revealed that she was ‘bedbound’ for years following the end of her eponymous sitcom as she battled with previously undiagnosed Lyme disease

In a new interview, the actress, 51, who wrapped up filming on Miranda [pictured] in 2015, told how she struggled to even leave the house and lived a life without ‘joy’ for the best part of a date after it ended

In the years that followed her acclaimed sitcom ending, Miranda went on to add that she had a ‘total collapse’ and had hit ‘rock bottom’ before eventually learning she was suffering with Lyme disease.

She told how after years of telling doctors that she was ‘leading a half-life, a very debilitated life, but with no understanding of why’, she told how experts eventually joined the dots and linked her symptoms to a period of her spending time in Virginia when she was a teen. 

While Miranda made an appearance in the feature film Emma in 2020 and starred as Miss Hannigan in the West End’s Annie in 2017, she has relatively stayed out of the spotlight in the last 10 years.

She added that while she’s not ‘fully recovered’, she is optimistic for her future and expressed her relief that there is now ‘understanding’ of her condition. 

She said: ‘I believe I will get better. I’ve only recently been out in the world again. If this was a named condition and this is how you manage it then I could handle it. I think the hardest thing about these sort of fatigue-based conditions is that lack of understanding, lack of never knowing when there’s an end date.’

It comes after Miranda gave a rare insight into her long-term health battle in her new memoir, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, in which she talks about her plight and the moment she ‘collapsed’ from ill health. 

It comes as Miranda also confirmed she is married, announcing the news about her mystery new husband live on The One Show last night after a flurry of rumours. 

While fans know the comedian, 51, as Chummy in Call The Midwife and for her cheery self-titled sitcom, Miranda has admitted behind closed doors she was desperately telling doctors: ‘I feel toxic and poisoned’.

Miranda eventually suffered with a ‘total collapse’ amid her 30-year battle with the condition, which eventually became myalgic encephalomyelitis – commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome

‘I was housebound and bedbound for years. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a social life. I didn’t have any responsibilities or identities’

In the years that followed her acclaimed sitcom ending, Miranda went on to add that she had a ‘total collapse’ and had hit ‘rock bottom’ before eventually learning she was suffering with Lyme disease [pictured on her sitcom]

It took medics 33 years to discover Miranda had been battling with the bacterial infection Lyme Disease, after initially mislabelling her as being agoraphobic – an anxiety disorder characterised by symptoms of anxiety in situations. 

She recalls running out a doctor’s appointment in floods of tears after they told her she was ‘TATT’ – ‘Tired All The Time’ and said: ‘I just don’t know what to do with you’.

The comic officially received the diagnosis in lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme Disease when she 14 after battling nasty flu-like symptoms in Virginia. 

She writes: ‘For me it was the unnerving neurological symptoms that I had got initially, aged fourteen, from Lyme, which I always found particularly hard to deal with. And they got considerably worse as I headed into my forties. As did the fatigue from the cell depletion. Yup, all delightful.’

Of the moment she got her diagnosis, she adds: ‘I got off that Zoom call, pulled my laptop shut and sat there, still and aghast. So many emotions, I was shocked, but I also immediately felt a deep well of sadness and disappointment – for over three decades I’d KNOWN there was something wrong. I recalled all the times I’d told different doctors, “I feel toxic and poisoned, or, It’s like I have flu every day but I don’t have a temperature.”

‘(It’s amazing how the body can sometimes literally tell us what’s going on.) I felt anger rising at the times l’d been told I must have agoraphobia. 

It comes after Miranda gave a rare insight into her long-term health battle in her new memoir, I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, in which she talks about her plight and the moment she ‘collapsed’ from ill health 

The comic officially received the diagnosis in lockdown and believes she contracted Lyme Disease when she 14 after battling nasty flu like symptoms in Virginia 

‘I would try and treat it as such, when, as it turned out, it was the lack of energy and the extreme light and sound sensitivity that made my body crash when going out to be in any kind of activity or stimulating environment.’

Miranda says she struggled to know how to share the news of her diagnosis with her followers, fearing she would be perceived as ‘complaining’ or ‘just tired all the time’. 

But Lyme Disease was causing havoc for her body and she ended up with ‘endless diagnoses’. Also, fans soon noticed her absence from TV screens. 

In 2017 it was revealed Miranda would not be returning to Call The Midwife, citing a busy work schedule as her reason.

But she later revealed during an stand-up gig in London that she had been suffering from ‘ill’ health.

She said at the time: ‘I don’t feel myself at the moment, because I was ill last year and I wasn’t able to exercise.’ 

While fans know the comedian, 51, as Chummy in Call The Midwife, Miranda has admitted behind closed doors she was desperately telling doctors: ‘I feel toxic and poisoned’

Excerpt taken from Miranda’s memoir I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You – out Thursday October 10