Mr Beast diagnosis that causes him him to live life 'on hard mode' and 'nukes his immune system'
Mr Beast has a long-term disease which he says means he spends time living his life 'on hard mode', and has opened up about being diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
The YouTuber who puts people through all sorts of tests and trials for prizes, appeared on Diary of a CEO last year where he spoke about getting his diagnosis at the age of 15 and what it did to him.
During his chat with Steven Bartlett he explained that from the ages of 11 to 15 his interests were 'a mix of YouTube and baseball', but at 15 he 'got Crohn's and went from like 190 pounds down to 139' as he 'lost all muscle'.
Mr Beast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, explained: "Crohn's disease is when your immune system attacks itself, when I was 15 I just started going to the bathroom eight, nine, 10 times a day. Not digesting any food because my GI track is, like, literally just attacking itself.
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"It's very weird. Your immune system in your gut thinks your gut is a foreign invader, and so it just starts attacking itself which if you're just using the bathroom 10 times a day, not digesting food, it's why you drop weight rapidly and it hurts like crazy because it gets very inflamed.
"It feels like someone's stabbing you in the gut with, like, a knife constantly."
Donaldson, 27, said he was put on several different medications until he ended up being given 'a pretty extreme medicine called Remicade', which he said was something where you 'basically nuke your immune system', opening him up to all sorts of other sicknesses.
"I just got the flu, I got covid six times, I got shingles, like, I get sick all the time because for me to have my GI track stop attacking itself we basically have to shut down my immune system," the YouTuber said.
MrBeast also described getting 'random rashes' and other ailments that turned out to be 'pretty brutal', since all the illness leaves him living 'life on hard mode'.
"If you wake up and you have energy, like, you're already leaps and bounds ahead of me," he said of his condition.
Donaldson said if he wasn't busy with his YouTube channel he'd look more into Crohn's disease and what other treatments he might pursue as he hoped there was a better way of treating him than impacting his immune system.
He noted that the 'ultimate solution' would be going in for surgery to remove part of his gut.
Despite his own health issues, the YouTuber once took part in a two-week water fast even though he was advised to try it for just a couple of days.
He said that he lost around '20-something pounds', but a significant portion of that was muscle which he found 'pretty depressing'.
Symptoms of Crohn's disease
Symptoms of Crohn's disease can be experienced in flare ups for weeks or months on end, especially if you aren't on treatment, as they come and go over time.
A flare up can last for a few days or several months at a time, and the severity of symptoms can range from mild to severe, they typically first start showing when someone is a teenager or young adult, but they can come at any age.
According to the NHS, the main symptoms of Crohn's disease can vary depending on which part of your digestive system is affected.
Main symptoms include:
- Diarrhoea
- Blood or mucus in your poo
- Stomach pain
- Constipation
- Pain in your bottom (anus)
- Feeling very tired or generally unwell
- Loss of appetite and losing weight
- In children, not growing as expected, or delayed puberty
Symptoms may also be present across the rest of the body such as joint pain, sore eyes or rashes on the skin.
Joe Harker