Ashton Kutcher opens up about his battle with rare form of vasculitis

Ashton Kutcher has opened up about his battle with a rare autoimmune disease that affects his hearing, eyesight and ability to walk, speaking about the condition for the first time in an emotional interview.

Called vasculitis, Kutcher first revealed he had the ailment a few months ago, during an episode of National Geographic’s “Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge.”

At the time, the former Punk’d host, who is married to Mila Kunis, told Grylls that the condition came on suddenly. in recent years, and he had been secretly fighting from behind for the better part of a year, and it even deprived him of the ability to walk.

On Monday, Kutcher offered new insight into his mysterious illness, describing debilitating symptoms that disrupted his life, while at one point sharing an emotional moment with his twin brother, Michael, who was born with cerebral palsy.

Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessels that can cause damage to organs and tissues. Kutcher’s flares, which disappeared about two years ago, also caused the star to temporarily lose vision.

The interview, filmed for Paramount+’s The Checkup with Dr. David Agus, airs Tuesday.

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In a clip posted ahead of the anticipated meeting, Kutcher, now 44, recounted how one day he was suddenly stricken with the disease, which is believed to be a disruption of the body’s immune system.

‘I woke up one day and I was having vision problems [and] I could barely see,’ the actor, famous for his ads on That ’70s Show and Dude, Where’s My Car?, told Agus, who bills himself as one of the world’s leading physicians and biomedical researchers.

“It knocked out my hearing, which affected my balance, my footing, and I couldn’t walk,” Kutcher continued.

I had vasculitis, which you are well aware of.

The actor, who has a 6- and 8-year-old boy and girl with Kunis, went on to experience frightening symptoms, even considered rare within the condition, such as temporary loss of vision, in addition to the aforementioned hearing loss.

“There’s a standard you get used to in your life, like being able to see clearly,” Kutcher recalled, describing how his life was temporarily uprooted by the disease. ‘And then all of a sudden you can’t see.’

The disease, which affects fewer than 200,000 Americans each year, would eventually dissipate, but not after leaving the former model nearly bedridden for “like a year.”

Kutcher added that he had a “super rare form” of the disease, which in most cases passes after a few weeks or months once the first symptoms are felt.

Worst of all, the disease often goes undetected due to the nondescript nature of its initial symptoms, which include fatigue, fever, and weight loss, which often apply to so many ailments that doctors don’t immediately suspect the disease.

He told Gryllis, 48, last month about his previously unknown struggles: “You want to get back to the health that you once had.”

Later in the episode, which has yet to be released, Kutcher sat down with his rarely seen brother, for the couple’s first joint interview.

Michael, also 44, was born with cerebral palsy and underwent a life-saving heart transplant at age 13.

In a short clip, the actor can be seen tearfully describing the moment his brother’s heart stopped at the hospital, placing his hand on Michael’s knee.

His twin responds with his own nod of comfort, grabbing Kutcher’s hand as he wipes away tears.

“Then my dad comes over and picks me up, and he’s like, let’s go see your brother and I’m like… it’s not all right,” Kutcher recalled, visibly emotional. And he lies flat in the room.

‘And I know that noise because now I’ve been occasionally visiting and watching the thing go off and then go off.

‘And they’re grabbing me and pulling me out and I’m like, what the hell is going on? [on]?’

The reunion comes nearly 20 years after Kutcher first revealed his brother’s cerebral palsy diagnoses in 2003, reportedly angering Michael at the time.

Since then, the brothers have been seen together on the red carpet and at other occasional events attended by Kutcher, who lives with his wife and children in Beverly Hills.

Kutcher said he started feeling the symptoms three years ago and eventually became aware of the condition, which usually resolves on its own but in severe cases can be treated with steroid therapy.

It took him about a year to recover, he has since said, saying he felt “lucky to be alive.” It was not immediately clear if the actor sought treatment or waited out the illness at his own expense.

While this is almost never the case, in some cases vasculitis, which occurs when the body’s immune system attacks the veins, arteries, and small capillaries, can prove fatal, as in the case of the late Caddyshack director and actor Ghostbusters, Harold Ramis, who died in 2016 after a four-year battle with the disease at age 69.

Deaths occur when inflammation narrows patients’ blood vessels and restricts blood flow, or even cuts it off completely, causing organ damage or creating aneurysms, according to the National Institutes of Health.

If that aneurysm ruptures, it can cause internal bleeding, a serious event that can lead to death.

Depending on the specific type and severity of the condition, and the organs targeted by the body’s white blood vessels and rogue antibodies, the symptoms of vasculitis vary in severity. Some cases last weeks, and others, years.

The types and severity of the disease are classified according to the size of the blood vessels attacked. Based on Kutcher’s symptoms, it is likely that he suffered from Behçet’s disease or Kawasaki disease, which affect medium-sized blood vessels.

Both can be treated with over-the-counter medications, but sometimes require doctors to prescribe steroids or additional antibodies.

Despite this, Kutcher didn’t let illness slow him down, even running in the New York City Marathon last month. He maintains that he is grateful to be alive and has since found a new lease on life.

The interview airs on Paramount+ on Tuesday.