Camilla Luddington Diagnosed with Hashimoto’s After Feeling ‘Slothy’

Camilla Luddington is learning to live with a new health condition, but admits she’s relieved to now know what it is and how to manage it. 

On the Wednesday, Aug. 6 episode of the Call It What It Is podcast that the 41-year-old actress co-hosts with her Grey’s Anatomy costar, Jessica Capshaw, Luddington revealed that she’s been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder affecting the thyroid gland, per Mayo Clinic.

“Long as you’ve been listening to us, you’ve known that I joke about being slothy. Just a little slower. Slower, tired, wanna be in bed, love a nap. It never occurred to me that there could be a medical reason for that,” Luddington said.

Capshaw, 48, recalled them thinking “it was a temperament thing.”

Luddington said routine blood work that she’d put off for too long helped her find her diagnosis. 

“I had all these plans, and I was like, you know what? I’m gonna get all my ducks in order in a row, whatever you say, and I’m gonna do my blood work and make sure everything’s all good. And so I wanna say about two and a half months ago now, still very recent. Had blood work, and it came back. And my doctor was like, everything looks great except this one little thing,” she explained.

Hearing the news from her medical provider came as a shock. 

“I remember hearing the words ‘autoimmune disease’ and thinking, ‘What the f—?’” Luddington said. However, she noted that her doctor told her that Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism was “very common.”

Capshaw was curious to know how her friend took the news, but Luddington admitted there was always a feeling in the back of her mind that there was something going on with her health. 

“You know what? I knew something was up,” Luddington told her co-host. “Because even when I was having my blood drawn, the doctor said to me, ‘Is there any, you know, particular thing you’re concerned about?’ And I said, ‘Look, I’m really f—— tired all the time.’ ”

Luddington’s initial thought was that she was experiencing perimenopause, a phase in a woman’s life just before menopause that deals with fluctuating hormone levels.

“So truly when they said autoimmune disease, I, you know, I was a little freaked out. And then when they said it’s really common, I was like, well, that sucks, but okay,” Luddington said. 

After that, it was a bit easier for her to digest the news. 

“And then, honestly, I was relieved. I felt like I had the answer for something that I’ve been knowing is going on, and I have health anxiety. So there was a part of me that was like, am I gaslighting myself? No,” she continued. 

Luddington said her next move was to call Capshaw about it. She then got together with her husband, Matthew Alan, and talked to her doctor about how to move forward. 

Capshaw said when Luddington first told her that Luddington was “feeling very lucky that you had the resources to go check it out and find it out. And at the same time, you were a little bit like, oh, there’s something wrong with me.”

She added that she didn’t get the sense that Luddington was “scared or completely overwhelmed” by the diagnosis.

Luddington said she felt better knowing the disease was common, joking that “misery loves company.”

She then explained, “Hashimoto’s is when your body’s immune system accidentally attacks your thyroid, which is a little gland in your neck that helps control your energy, AKA makes you a little slothy. K? So over time, the damage it does, it makes the thyroid slow down and stop making enough hormones.” 

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Luddington continued, “And what it can make you feel is tired and cold, which is really funny because Matt would make fun of me because I’d have, like, 40 blankets on me at night. It can make you foggy, depressed.”

Additional symptoms include dry skin, thin hair and weight gain, the actress said. “Basically, you’re feeling gorgeous with Hashimoto,” Luddington quipped.