Love Island bombshell Toni Laites has opened up about her long-term health struggle.
Toni has revealed she experiences ulcerative colitis. This long-term health condition causes people’s large intestines and rectums to become inflamed. Ulcers appear on the lining of the colon, which can produce pus and bleed. People with ulcerative colitis will often experience mild symptoms for long periods of time, then suffer from flare-ups. Eyes can become irritated, and joints can swell up.
Doctors believe ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune condition. It is possible the body’s immune system mistakes harmless bacteria inside the colon for something dangerous, so attacks tissues in the colon.
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(@tlaites20)Toni was diagnosed with this health condition years before the Love Island villa, when she was still in her teens. She explained: “What I hope people see from me being on Love Island is that not all illnesses are visible. It doesn’t have to hold you back, you can travel etc…I live my life day-to-day like anyone else.”
She experiences a particularly bad flare-up when she was 17, right before her high school prom. Toni had to spend a week in hospital. The doctors and nurses didn’t want Toni to miss her prom, so they granted her therapeutic leave. The hospital workers helped Toni to do her hair and make-up for the big event and arranged for her to be driving there. Isn’t that a sweet story?
Toni said: “I had to go to hospital the same week as my senior prom. [The doctors] told me, ‘You can’t go’ and then they said, ‘Surprise, you’re going to prom!’ Nothing that exciting happens in Connecticut, so it was a big deal and a few articles were written about me.”
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Featured image via ITV.
