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'The invisible disease': Bella Hadid opens up about the Lyme disease symptoms she suffers daily

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Bella Hadid (VALERY HACHE/AFP via Getty Images)
Bella Hadid (VALERY HACHE/AFP via Getty Images)

Bella Hadid is getting candid about the reality of living with Lyme disease.

On Tuesday, the model took to Instagram to share infographics and diagrams about Lyme disease with her more than 32.5 million followers. The posts, originally shared by chef Joudie Kalla, included a list of symptoms many people with Lyme disease suffer from on a daily basis.

The 23-year-old drew arrows to the nearly 30 symptoms she said she frequently experiences, such as headache, brain fog, insomnia, confusion, disorientation, dizziness and anxiety. Hadid also revealed to fans that she experiences certain symptoms “everyday” including muscle spasms, joint pain and swelling, tingling and numbness as well as trouble walking.

“Every day I feel at least 10 of these attributes without fail ... since I was probably 14, but more aggressively when I turned 18,” Hadid wrote over Kalla’s inforgraphics. On the lengthy list of Lyme disease symptoms Hadid added, “What we suffer daily with no cure. The truth. the invisible disease.”

Hadid also reposted a post from Kalla, who shared her experience living with Lyme disease. The best-selling author of “Palestine on a Plate” called the disease a “constant minefield that keeps on giving.”

“Sometimes you just want to drown and other days you feel like a super hero,” she wrote. “What I know now is to take each day as it comes and try my best.”

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Hadid first spoke publicly about living with Lyme disease in 2016 while attending the Globlal Lyme Alliance Gala. The then-20-year-old revealed despite her glamorous career, she privately suffers from the effects of the disease.

“Life isn’t always what it looks like on the outside, and the hardest part of this journey is to be judged by the way you look instead of the way you feel,” she said at the time.

Both Hadid’s mother, Yolanda Hadid, and younger brother, Anwar, also suffer from Lyme disease. Yolanda’s struggle with the illness was documented during her time on the Bravo reality series, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

“There are rough days when you sleep 12 hours, you wake up at 11 and you can’t get out of bed, with severe joint pain, brain fog, anxiety. There are a lot of symptoms that you can’t see from the outside but bring you to your knees on the inside,” she told People magazine. “You can never get rested, that’s the best way to explain it... Life goes on and you try to keep going. Especially with the younger generations, they have to keep pushing.”

Yolanda Hadid and Bella Hadid. Image via Getty Images.
Yolanda Hadid and Bella Hadid. Image via Getty Images.

Hadid also said that her career as one of the most sought after models in the industry can take its toll on her physically.

“By the end, I’m definitely done and need a week to just sleep and not do anything,” Hadid said of keeping up with her in-demand schedule. “When I’m at fashion week it’s literally only work, and when I’m not working I’m sleeping — especially during fashion week. I don’t go out that much, I eat dinner by myself in my hotel room and go to sleep. That’s pretty much my fashion week.”

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