Camilla Luddington is getting real about her health — and finally has answers for the symptoms she’s been experiencing for years.
The 41-year-old Grey’s Anatomy star opened up on the latest episode of her podcast Call It What It Is, co-hosted with Jessica Capshaw, about being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Disease, a condition she says explained a lot about how she’s been feeling.
“My doctor was like, ‘Everything looks great except this one little thing,’” Luddington shared, recalling her recent bloodwork. “And I remember hearing the words ‘autoimmune disease’ and thinking, ‘What the f—k.’ And then being told that I had something called Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism and that it was very common.”
According to Mayo Clinic, Hashimoto’s Disease is an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid, which regulates many bodily functions. While the diagnosis initially left her shaken, Luddington admitted she also felt relief.
“I felt like I had the answer for something that I’ve been knowing is going on,” she said. “And I have health anxiety, so there was a part of me that was like, ‘Am I gaslighting myself?’”
Camilla explained that while she’s always been tired, her fatigue recently intensified to the point where she felt like she’d “chugged some Benadryl” by mid-morning.
“I thought, like, I have two kids, I’m in my forties. This is what the forties is,” she joked. “But it got to the point where, like by eleven, I needed to nap. It didn’t matter how much sleep I’d gotten the night before.”
The signs became more obvious. “The week before, I was waking up and my face and my hands were really swollen,” she said. “My rings — I was having trouble taking my rings off.”
She’s now on Levothyroxine, a common medication for hypothyroidism. “I started on the lowest dose of that, and I had to have blood work every six weeks,” she explained. “They said I would start to feel the effects of it, but I’m still not normal.”
That said, she’s already feeling a difference. “I returned to Barry’s Boot Camp. I did it all last week,” she said. “I’m on the road to recovery. It’s going to be a journey.”
