Reality TV star Billie Shepherd has said she was told her biological age is 59 but explained she was ill at the time and had been experiencing symptoms of Lyme disease.
Shepherd, former star of The Only Way Is Essex, can be seen receiving her diagnosis with the bacterial infection in a new ITV reality show titled Sam And Billie: Sister Act.
The 35-year-old and her sister Sam Faiers star in the series, where they juggle motherhood with their careers and go on a “wellness journey” together.
Faiers told ITV’s This Morning: “We also go on this kind of wellness journey … some parts are emotional, but some parts are really interesting for the viewers to take home. So we did this biological age test.”
There are different ways to test for “biological age”, which is a new method of describing age, through honing in on different indicators in the body.
Shepherd said her age came back as 59 after a series of testing.
She said: “Afterwards, she explained to me about how the test is measured on inflammation in your body and at that time, I wasn’t very well when I’d had the test done.
“So I’m kind of looking forward to maybe having the test done later on this year, and hopefully I’ll be my actual age, rather than older than my mum.”
Speaking about Lyme disease, she added: “They say it can come from an infected tick bite. I think with Lyme disease, it can really vary with symptoms from person to person.
“So for me personally, back in January, I was really unwell. It kind of happened over the space of a week.
“I had something, well, reactive arthritis, so severe joint pain, and then I had something called erythematosus, which is like red lumps all over my legs. I had a rash.
“I was so unwell, like I’ve never felt like that in my life. I’ve gone from being a healthy person to this happening, and it took about six weeks of testing to finally get a diagnosis.”
She added: “As much as I was a bit shocked (about the diagnosis), which you see in the series – I was quite shocked with it – and obviously there’s been some adjustments to my lifestyle and everything.
“But it was actually a relief, because I was getting myself in this sort of hole, if you like, of like Googling stuff and not knowing.”
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks and it is usually easier to treat when found early, according to the NHS website.
Some people also get flu-like symptoms a few days or weeks after they were bitten by an infected tick and others have ongoing symptoms, such as tiredness, aches and loss of energy that can last for years.
