N-Dubz star Tulisa Contostavlos has opened up about a secret health struggle after discovering the cause of 'horrific' issues that have plagued her for 12 years.
Appearing on the So Wrong, It's Right podcast hosted by Love Island star Olivia Attwood, the singer said she sought medical help from multiple doctors after being left with the feeling that her 'cheek was on fire' and it felt like she had ants crawling across her face.
The 36-year-old had been diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a condition the NHS says involves a 'temporary weakness or lack of movement' usually located on one side of the face, in 2020.
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Treatments include courses of steroids and it can take around six months for symptoms to get better in most cases, but in some cases the symptoms will persist for longer.
For Tulisa even after the diagnosis she continued to have heath issues that caused a swelling in her face and she told the podcast that the condition made her self-conscious about her appearance to the point that she once didn't leave the house for seven months.
"I've never gone into it before, to be fair, I hadn't had any surgery up until, confession, recently," she said.
"And all the time before, there was no surgery - it was only fillers, and other issues that I had.
"When I was about 24, I had my first Bell's palsy attack, I was sat at home and I had this massive burst inflammation."
She talked about the 'trauma of the inflammation' before telling Attwood that 'no one knows what caused it to blow up'.
Hopefully after years of this the cause of Tulisa's continued woes might be dealt with soon.
The singer told So Wrong, It's Right that earlier this year an ultrasound revealed that she had 'three chronically infected cysts' in her cheek.
She explained that over the years she'd used filler to 'balance out' the effects of Bell's palsy, but that they weren't the cause of the cysts.
"I have no idea what they were caused by, they weren’t filler, they were just self-occurring, but I came out of the operation and instantly my face was less swollen," Tulisa said, adding that she was due to go in for more procedures to get rid of them.
“There’s some still there so I still have the inflammation, but it’s way less. In the next two months, he’s going to go in to get those ones."
Joe Harker