Katie Piper has opened up about suffering a recent health scare, which saw her suffering “intolerable” eye pain which required emergency surgery.
The 38-year-old shared the details with her fellow Loose Women panellists on Thursday afternoon as she recalled the three weeks of eye pain she suffered before realising something was wrong.
She noted she is used to a degree of eye pain after her horrific acid attack in 2008, which left her face severely burned and blind in one eye.
Katie said her husband Richard James Sutton noticed she had developed a black dot at the centre of her painful eye, at which point she thought her pupil was returning.
Katie explained: “Then it got bigger and the pain just got intolerable. Very consuming, where I could feel it in my skull and you can’t tolerate light.”
The growing dot turned out to be a hole in her eye, which was gradually getting bigger and forced Katie to undergo an emergency procedure for a cornea transplant to cover the perforation.
Katie told her fellow Loose Women: “It’s something I always feared would happen to me one day, because I have a very thin surface on my blind eye, so it can be vulnerable to perforation.”
Fellow presenter Carol McGiffin asked if she had done anything which resulted in the hole, to which Katie joked: “I think it was just the stress of working with you.”
Laughing, she continued: “I’m back and I’m happy to be here and I'm in one piece.”
She explained that the normal pain and discomfort she suffers has abated since undergoing the operation, saying: “When you’re blind in one eye you can’t judge depth and distance, so it’s helped a little bit.
“I can’t see with that eye but my peripheral vision is better in crowded rooms. I can see a little more light and shade.”
Host Jane Moore praised the star, saying: “I do admire you because you’re an absolute trooper,” as Carol chimed: “You are, nothing phases you.”
Katie concluded: “It’s been so long, I just made peace that this is my life now. I made peace years ago. I’m just really grateful to be here and be well.”
She also noted the need for eye donors, saying: “I think for a lot of people donating eyes is something very personal and for religious reasons, spiritual reasons, some people don’t want to do that, which is totally understandable. But they are very much needed for people like me.”
