Leslie Ash feels "really awake" after quitting anti-depressants.
The 55-year-old actress was left disabled and with permanent spinal injuries after she contracted a strain of the deadly super-bug MRSA in 2004 and she’s now revealed it wasn’t until recently that she stopped taking medication to help her forget about the pain.
She explained: "When you’ve got nerve pain they tend to give you anti-depressants which tell your brain that you’re not in pain so it takes away about 50 per cent of the pain and I just thought, actually, I don’t like them, because they don’t let you finish your conversation or finish your sentence even.
"You have big bits of your life missing and so I really wanted to get off them and I’ve taken quite a long time to get off them because it’s not something you can just suddenly come off and I feel really awake now, it’s brilliant."
The ‘Men Behaving Badly’ star also opened up about her struggle with learning how to walk again.
She told ITV’s ‘Lorraine’: "It’s taken about 11 years from doing pilates, yoga … You find a balance of what works for you and it’s either use it or lose it basically. So I work very hard at my fitness and to basically train my body to balance using different neurological pathways."
And now that she feels herself again, Leslie is hoping to return to acting.
She added: "It’s a profound grief losing your identity, my job. I used to love acting, I still do act but not as much as I did … It’d be nice to try it medication free because then instead of concentrating on your balance you might be able to do a bit of acting as well."
Leslie Ash feels ‘really awake’ after quitting anti-depressants
