Grey's Anatomy star Camilla Luddington has opened up about the devastation surrounding her tinnitus diagnosis.
Luddington plays Dr. Josephine "Jo" Wilson in the ABC series, having joined the cast in 2012. She hosts the podcast Call It What It Is alongside her friend and former Grey's Anatomy star Jessica Capshaw. Capshaw became a regular on the medical drama as pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins but left in March 2018 after starring in 11 seasons of the hit show.
When recording the podcast, the two women talk about their lives and share interesting stories about the entertainment industry. On Monday's episode, Luddintgon spoke publicly about her health diagnosis in the episode "Call It My Ears Are Ringing."
Newsweek emailed a spokesperson for Luddington for comment on Tuesday.
"I'm going to talk about something I haven't really talked about before, definitely have not talked about in detail," Luddington said, explaining she has since discovered there are millions of other people who have also been diagnosed with the health condition.
"It felt very lonely when I first realized I had it so we're going to talk about it," she continued.
"Two-ish—three—maybe two-ish years ago I was watching Ghost Busters and there are a lot of silent parts in it and I turned to Matt and I said, 'Is, is the TV buzzing?' I was very confused and he was like 'No,' and I'm like, 'Do you hear that ringing in your ear?' and he was like 'No I don't.' And, long story short, I realized I had something called tinnitus, which is—and I still have it to this day—which is a constant noise.
"Actually I don't have it—you can have it in one ear or the other ear—I only have it in my right ear. Um, I have it right now, I can always hear it, and it was very distressing to me because I realized after a few days, 'Oh I still hear this constantly, I'm not sure if this is something that is going to go away.'"
Tinnitus is the name for when someone hears ringing or buzzing from inside one or both of their ears. It's not always clear what causes tinnitus but it is often linked with hearing loss, or other conditions like Ménière's disease, anxiety or depression.
"I have to say that I was really devastated over it. I heard it very loudly, a lot, I found it very hard to parent, I was so self-conscious, I felt like I was going a little crazy and I ended up doing a hearing test and finding out I also had some hearing loss," the actor explained.
"Apparently I have the hearing of someone who is more, like, 60 years old, and I found that news very distressing and I was told tinnitus was some kind of hearing loss. Right now, right now I don't need a hearing aid, although I'm sure I'll need one at some point, maybe in my 40s, and I'm going to rock that by the way everyone."
Luddington said that tinnitus can also sometimes be the result of a tumor so had to go for an MRI scan, which showed that she didn't have one.
She then had to learn that this wasn't something that was going to go away and she has to live with it, which she said has "taken me some time" to process.
"This has never come up in our friendship, um, only when we started working on the podcast and obviously multi-layer aspects of who we are come to light," Capshaw said.
"And another one of the producers on the show also has experienced this and it was incredibly interesting to hear you two talk about it ... I had no idea it was happening in your life."
This isn't the first time the women have spoken about their health and their personal life on the podcast as previously, Capshaw opened up about the "deep sadness" she felt after having a miscarriage.
"I got pregnant and I was so excited and I had never had any issues before getting pregnant. I was very lucky and I'm very grateful. And then all of a sudden, at my 10-week appointment, [I] went in for the ultrasound, was by myself, totally unsuspecting, and there was no heartbeat," Capshaw said, describing it as a "horrible" situation.
The actress went on to say it was "the most shocking and deeply, deeply sad thing."
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