Bella Hadid has shared a health update after revealing that a tooth infection caused a flare up of her Lyme disease.
The 26-year-old model recently gave insight into her ongoing struggle with Lyme disease on TikTok. On 1 April, Hadid explained that the flare up occurred nearly one year after she had a root canal surgery for a problem tooth. In a video shared to TikTok, the model showed off her swollen face with inflammation around her eyes.
“Tooth update,” she wrote in the TikTok video’s lengthy caption. “There was a low-grade infection underneath the tooth, NEXT to the tooth I thought was suffering (she’s good) which is the one I got a root canal on a year ago. It continued to spread down, causing a low-grade infection in my jaw. I have felt in my heart for months that I needed this tooth out, to heal the rest, and if not, it was going to take me out!”
The Dutch-Palestinian model encouraged her followers to keep an eye on their health. “Please listen to your bodies my friends please!!! This made my Lyme flare up, which means the Lyme is attacking the places that are suffering ie tooth, jaw, gut, brain, spine, bones etc oh, and the entire nervous system,” she continued.
Bella Hadid was first diagnosed with Lyme disease, which spreads to humans by infected ticks, in 2012. She went on to write that “any minor trauma to the body” can cause her Lyme disease to flare up. Since suffering from the tooth infection, she said her jaw “has been so inflamed” and her Lyme would “flare-up/inflame randomly when I was/am overly stressed or overworking.”
While Hadid admitted that she wasn’t worried because “Lyme flare-ups happen all the time”, she shared that her jaw is “radiating” with pain. “Some days it’s okay! And some days are difficult,” she added.
Despite her ongoing health struggle, the model shared that she’s turned to her love of horseback riding amidst the pain. “I am okay though!! I feel better when I’m riding!” Hadid said, before noting how two rounds of antibiotics have also helped. “I think my horses just really take my mind off the pain.”
Hadid informed her followers that she’ll be getting the problem tooth extracted on Monday, adding: “I’ve never been so excited to go to the dentist.”
“Thank you for checking in on me,” she concluded. “I see you all!! Wish me luck!!!”
In a follow-up post, Hadid showed her fans a close-up view of the infected tooth as she gave an extensive history of her struggle with Lyme disease over the years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks. It’s often diagnosed based on symptoms – such as fever, headache, fatigue, or skin rash – or laboratory testing.
Hadid detailed some of the symptoms she endures during a Lyme disease flare-up in a separate TikTok video. “My skin changes colour, I break out randomly, I get (what feels like) lesions, lethargy, chronic anxiety, zero motivation or purpose, leaky gut, adrenals, depression,” she wrote over the clip.
Hadid also said that she now “hates looking in the mirror or taking pictures” of herself because of the impact the disease can have on her appearance. “If I’m all dolled up, maybe I’ll try for the girls but, man, is it hard to do this as your profession while also feeling/looking sick like this,” she said.
She went on to show a picture of herself from four weeks ago, when her Lyme disease symptoms were at the worst. The model noted how her jaw was inflamed, and she was suffering from chronic exhaustion, dehydration, depression and fatigue. “If you look back at work pictures from the past eight years, you can tell the difference between me when my Lyme flares up and me when I’m healthy,” Hadid added. “She’s a different girl. I feel so bad for her, my little body.”
To treat her recent tooth infection, Hadid revealed that doctors prescribed her antibiotics and pain relief medication. “Basically, the nerve pain from my jaw ended up going down the entire meridian of my body – to the touch, all the way down my body through all my lymph nodes,” she explained. “This pain, man. Something real different. Real different.”
After she went into detail about her decade-long struggle with Lyme disease, Hadid thanked her fans for their continuing support. “Thank you for watching this and knowing a little more about me that is a huge part of my everyday life,” she said. “It means more to me than you even know and I feel closer to you guys now. Love you all, a lot, a lot, a lot. My angels.”
This isn’t the first time Hadid has opened up about her health condition. In August 2020, the model revealed just some of the symptoms she experiences on a daily basis in a series of Instagram Stories, referring to Lyme as an “invisible disease”.
In one post, Hadid shared a diagram of the ways Lyme disease can affect people, adding arrows to the symptoms she suffers from. “Everyday I feel at least 10 of these attributes without fail,” she wrote alongside the list. “Since I was probably 14, but more aggressively when I turned 18.”
Some of the symptoms she highlighted were headaches, brain fog, sensitivity to light and noise, thyroid dysfunction, inflammation, joint pain and numbness.
Bella Hadid’s mother, Yolanda Hadid, and her brother, Anwar Hadid, were also diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2012.
