Broadcaster Jonathan Ross has opened up about his daughter Betty’s fibromyalgia diagnosis, saying she is using an electric wheelchair and has experienced an impact on her mental health.
Speaking on Loose Women’s final episode before the new year, the ITV chatshow host, who presented Radio 2’s Saturday morning show for a decade, told the panel: “It’s been a tough couple of years for her in particular, but she is getting slowly better.”
Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that causes widespread muscle pain and tenderness. It is often accompanied by fatigue, altered sleep, cognitive impairment – such as difficulty remembering things – and emotional distress.
Ross shared that his eldest daughter had Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. Before her diagnosis with fibromyalgia a year ago, Betty was thought to be suffering from long Covid, which has a similar constellation of symptoms that overlap with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a complex and often debilitating illness that can follow viral infections.
“They don’t really know how to treat it, because there’s not a consensus yet,” Ross said, adding that 30-year-old Betty has been “showing some improvement” after undergoing the Perrin technique (involving the stimulation of the lymphatic system), which she discovered online.
“She has chronic fatigue syndrome and Pots [postural orthostatic tachycardia] syndrome as well, which is where your heart rate shoots up,” added Ross, who said Betty still cannot walk very far and was given an electric wheelchair this summer, which “lifted her spirits a lot”.
“Because that’s the problem – anyone out there who has got someone with a long-term illness, it’s the depression,” said Ross, 62. “Being stuck indoors and not being able to join in on things,” he continued, “because even stairs are a challenge for her”.
He added: “It does have an impact, but the good thing is she’s definitely showing improvement.”
In September 2021, Betty shared her diagnosis on Instagram, writing that she felt her pain was being acknowledged and was then able to find better ways of managing it.
“Shout out to the four people who all said they thought I had fibro, turns out y’all were right,” she wrote. “There’s always a lot of weird feelings that come with a new diagnosis, but this one overall feels like a relief.”