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News Item
Michael Crawford battles Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and returns to the stage
15 March 2011
Michael Crawford, star of The Phantom Of The Opera and The Woman In White, is back on stage, seven years after fearing that chronic fatigue had ended his career.
The Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em star, 69, picked up the condition while appearing in Woman in White back in 2004.
“I’d be totally exhausted by mid-afternoon, and I could barely climb the stairs at home. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what. What I thought had been flu turned into a physical meltdown. I went for all sorts of brain and body scans until ME was finally diagnosed”.
“I was told by the doctors that it was all down to the Count Fosco suit. It had made me sweat so much that I had become dangerously dehydrated. I’d been losing too many nutrients from my body, and the water I’d been swigging wasn’t enough to replace them. With no nutrients to sustain me, I had become vulnerable to a virus”.
“My immune system had broken down and this led to ME. Ironically, I’d helped design that rubber costume, and it had been like stepping into a sauna for three hours every night.”
After four years of ill health, Crawford was fit to work again. He received several offers to return to performing, but was enjoying his stress-free life too much to return to the stage. It was only after a two-week holiday with his family in Sicily last Summer that he felt sufficiently fired up to resume acting.
Crawford, now starring in Wizard of Oz said: “If anyone had told me one day I’d be back in London’s West End I wouldn’t have thought it possible. I thought my career had come to an end”.
Brian Barr are expert lawyers for people with chronic pain and fatigue conditions such as Fibromyalgia, ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD / CRPS), myofascial pain syndrome, lupus, ankylosing spondylitis and chronic back pain. If an accident triggered your illness or if you have been refused a substantial payment under a permanent health insurance/critical illness policy or accident protection plan please contact us by clicking here or call us on 0161 737 9248.
