Heather Rae El Moussa is recalling the dread she felt about being on camera for either The Flipping El Moussas on HGTV or Selling Sunset on Netflix. The fatigue she felt was just too much, and at times she didn’t even want to get out of bed. But proving even more frustrating was figuring out the cause of this fatiguness.
In a new interview with TODAY.com, the 36-year-old real estate agent and reality TV star said she initially chalked it up to being a new mother. She gave birth to her and Tarek El Moussa’s first child, Tristan, back in January. Being a first-time mom, Heather figured this fatigue she was feeling was par for the course. But then her milk supply dropped drastically.
She tells the outlet that she went from pumping more than six ounces of milk to suddenly being lucky if she produced half an ounce. This triggered her lactation consultant to suggest she make an appointment to get blood work done. And when the results came in, Heather Rae said she was in “shock” to learn her diagnosis — an autoimmune disorder called Hashimoto’s disease, a disorder that attacks the thyroid gland. Its symptoms include causing fatigue and weight gain.
And, finally, Heather Rae had an explanation to the fatigue that exhausted her so much she said she remembers telling her assistant, “I feel like I’m dead.”
“My brain was so tired,” she tells TODAY.com. “My body was so tired. I was exhausted all the time and no amount of sleep could make it better.”
She said filming was so brutal because there were times she couldn’t get out of bed.
But things have turned for the better since the diagnosis, and Heather Rae says medication has helped tremendously.
Heather Rae, who counts Tarek’s two children Taylor, 13, and Brayden, 8, as part of her family, has been very open about her health, from this recent diagnosis to the couple’s IVF journey before revealing that Tristan was conceived naturally despite the fertility treatments.
And after welcoming Tristan in January, the couple invited ET to their opulent home in March and gave ET the exclusive first look at their little boy.
“I didn’t think I’d be this obsessed with him. I thought, you know, ‘Oh, I’d be OK going to dinners’ or ‘I’d be OK going on the little trips’ and it’s hard to even go to the doctor or, like, leave the house at all or leave him at all to even shower and get ready. Now we have this little thing we have to protect for the rest of our lives and he’s so precious,” Heather Rae said at the time. “He’s such a good baby. I have this insane bond with him that I didn’t know I was going to have and I don’t think you can experience that until he’s here and you have those feelings.”
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