Heather Rae Young has Hashimoto’s disease.
The 36-year-old realtor opened up about her exhausting symptoms and journey to her diagnosis of the thyroid-attacking disease in an interview with Today.com published Friday.
“I remember saying to my assistant, ‘I feel like I’m dead,’” she recalled.
“My brain was so tired. My body was so tired. I was exhausted all the time and no amount of sleep could make it better.”
She was so tired, she admitted, that she didn’t even want to film her reality shows, HGTV’s “The Flipping El Moussas,” on which she stars with her husband, Tarek El Moussa, and Netflix’s hit series, “Selling Sunset.”
“Filming was absolutely brutal because I could barely get out of bed,” Young explained.
Originally, the businesswoman assumed she had “mom brain” and was tired because she had just given birth to her first child, a boy named Tristan, in January.
She was also helping raise her stepkids, Taylor, 13, and Brayden, 8, whom El Moussa shares with his ex-wife, Christina Hall.
However, when Young suddenly was unable to produce enough milk for her newborn, she thought something else may have been going on. She was right.
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After getting bloodwork done, she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, a disorder that causes the immune system to attack the thyroid gland, per the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
The disease was behind the new mother’s lack of energy and breast milk — and was triggered by her pregnancy.
Young said she was in “total shock” when she was diagnosed and is now “feeling much better.”
So is little Tristan, who also struggled with a health issue of his own — he was born with a tongue tie, which occurs when the band of tissue connecting the tongue to the floor of the mouth is thicker and prevents optimum tongue movement, according to The Nemours Foundation.
The tongue tie made it difficult for Tristan to breastfeed, but his condition was eventually corrected with laser surgery.
“We had a lot of things working against us, including my autoimmune disorder, but we did it,” Young proudly stated.
The reality star’s diagnosis announcement comes after she spoke out about not appearing in the full cast picture for “Selling Sunset” Season 7.
“Looks like I got pushed in the water… its a good thing I can swim! ” she captioned an Oct. 5 Instagram snap of herself. She added that fans “may” see her “in a few episodes.”
Young previously hinted she might not return to the hit Netflix show after revealing in March she had not been asked to film, following her maternity leave.
“Season 7 is filming right now, but I’ve been off maternity leave and I’ve been excited to get back to work and so far I have not been called back,” she said at the time.
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