Professor Green has tumours behind eye and spine as he reveals 'rare' and painful condition

Professor Green revealed he had received a diagnosis of schwannomatosis, a rare condition that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow on a person's nerve sheath and causes them pain.

Taking to Instagram to explain it, he said 'genes are funny old things' as he explained in a health update his 'tumours are thankfully benign', but that didn't mean he didn't suffer from complications.

The DJ said he'd had 'four relatively superficial but painful growths' taken out of his head and neck, but had since discovered more with one being behind his left eye and three more along his spine.

One of those, he said, was 'the size of a blemmin’ lime'.

He said: "After a good few weeks of worrying about whether or not they were benign or malignant, I feel as though as painful as this is (I thought it was ‘just’ worsening sciatica), the trauma I went through in my head living out worst case scenario’s was worse.

"I’ve come to a place of acceptance - this is how I’ll experience life, there’s no way around it, and that’s okay.

"What isn’t okay is descending into cyclical thought, nor is catastrophising or dreaming of some other reality - both are avoidance and neither conducive to being present."

The DJ said he was suffering from 'physical pain causing mental anguish' but wanted to know whether sometimes the pain he was feeling was because his 'mental load' was 'manifesting physically'.

"Again, its probably not worth too much thought," he told his followers.

"I'm doing my utmost to acknowledge, accept and exist wholly and fully without becoming avoidant and being somewhat willingly distracted by it all. Though hands up to having been hijacked by it all for a few weeks."

Professor Green said he likely also suffered from hyper-interoception, which is where the body's ability to feel internal sensations gets turned up a lot, so for example a person who hears their own heartbeat may become very anxious.

He said he'd found out about this after his autism diagnosis and it had helped him understand a lot of what was happening, as well as 'allowed me to pull my focus away from it when I realise I’m becoming obsessive'.

Describing his health matters as 'an intense experience' and also 'the only one I'll ever know', Professor Green said it was working to get to the point where he could say 'not everything is okay, but I am'.

The DJ said some days were better than others but he'd work with what he had on the day.

To anyone suffering with anything chronic - I see, hear and feel you!" he declared.

Schwannomatosis

According to the Mayo Clinic, schwannomatosis typically affects a person after the age of 20, and the symptoms usually begin presenting themselves between the ages of 25 and 30.

Slow growing tumours develop on nerves in the brain, spine and peripheral nerves, and they can also affect nerves responsible for a person's vision or eye movement.

The main symptoms are:

• A long-lasting pain which can be 'disabling'
• Numbness, tingling or weakness in the body
• Muscle loss in affected areas
• Balance problems and changes in hearing

There are different types of schwannomatosis, SMARCB1-, LZTR1- and NF2-related, with the latter more likely to affect the ears and cause hearing loss.