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Daisy Ridley has revealed she was diagnosed with Graves’ disease last year.
The 32-year-old British actor, best known for her portrayal of Rey in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, opened up about her diagnosis with the autoimmune disease in a new interview with Women’s Health Magazine.
“It’s the first time I’ve shared that [Graves’],” Ridley shared, explaining that she received the diagnosis last September after her doctor referred her to see an endocrinologist.
Graves’ disease, also called Basedow’s disease, is an immune system condition that affects the thyroid gland, according to the Mayo Clinic. It’s a relatively common condition that is said to affect more than 3 million people, mostly women, in the US each year.
Symptoms can be wide-ranging but may include a slight hand and/or finger tremor, weight loss, heat sensitivity, bulging eyes, menstrual cycle changes and fast or irregular heartbeat.
Before receiving the diagnosis, Ridley had just wrapped filming Magpie, a forthcoming psychological thriller in which she plays Anette, a wife and mother whose husband (Shazad Latif) falls in love with an actor (Matilda Lutz).
She recalled that she had begun experiencing bouts of hot flashes and fatigue at the time.
“I thought, ‘Well, I’ve just played a really stressful role; presumably that’s why I feel poorly,’” the actor said.
The Star Wars: The Last Jedi star added that when she shared her symptoms with her doctor, including that she had also been struggling with feelings of restlessness and irritability, her doctor said Graves’ is often referred to as “tired but wired.”
“It was funny, I was like, ‘Oh, I just thought I was annoyed at the world,’ but turns out everything is functioning so quickly, you can’t chill out,” she said.
Before her diagnosis, Ridley said that she’d “always been health conscious, and now I’m trying to be more well-being conscious.”
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She said that she’s more recently introduced infrared saunas, cryotherapy, massages and acupuncture into her life.
“I do a fair amount of the holistic stuff, but I also understand that it is a privilege to be able to do those things,” Ridley acknowledged. “In the grand scheme of things, it’s much less severe than what a lot of people go through.
“We all read the stats about women being undiagnosed or underdiagnosed and sort of coming to terms with saying, ‘I really, actually don’t feel good’ and not going, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.’ It’s just normalized to not feel good,” she said, adding: “Even if you can deal with it, you shouldn’t have to. If there’s a problem, you shouldn’t have to just [suffer through it].”
