Seven years ago, Daisy Ridley saw a photograph of herself at the London premiere for The Last Jedi.

“I was so skinny and my skin was terrible,” she told GQ.

She got tests done “and it turned out my body was taking in no nutrients. I was just like a little skeleton and I was just so tired. I was becoming a ghost”.

Plus, stress – those carping Star Wars purists – had caused holes in her gut wall.

Since then she’s pushed herself emotionally and physically in her post-Star Wars career.

A year ago, Ridley had just completed an emotionally gruelling shoot for Magpie, a psychological thriller in which she plays a troubled mother of two with a wandering husband.

Ridley, then just 31, reportedly visited her GP, complaining of hot flashes and fatigue.

She was also found to have a racing heartbeat, weight loss and hand tremors.

She assumed the symptoms were a hangover of the shoot’s intensity.

As she told Women’s Health this month: “I thought, Well, I’ve just played a really stressful role; presumably that’s why I feel poorly.”

Ridley was referred to an endocrinologist who diagnosed her with Graves’ disease.

Graves’ is an autoimmune condition.

When left untreated, it can complicate heart issues, make your bones weak and brittle, and cause pregnancy complications.

Ridley already suffered with endometriosis, which works against fertility.

The good news: Getting treatment early will improve your symptoms and lower the risk of these complications.

Graves’ and the thyroid

According to a review from the National Institutes of Health: Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disorder that can cause hyperthyroidism, or overactive thyroid.

The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland in the front of your neck.

Thyroid hormones affect many aspects of body processes, including nervous system function, how the body uses energy, brain development, body temperature, and how your heart beats.

With Graves’ disease, your immune system attacks your thyroid, causing it to make more thyroid hormones than your body needs.

As a result, many of your body’s functions speed up.

Ridley’s doctor told her that Graves’ is often referred to as “tired but wired”.

She realised then she’d been highly irritable, another irritable.

As she told Woman’s Health: “It was funny, I was like, ‘Oh, I just thought I was annoyed at the world,’ but turns out everything is functioning so quickly, you can’t chill out.”

Issues and symptoms

Graves’ is the most common form of hyperthyroidism.

They share many of the same symptoms. These include:

• Rapid heart rate (tachycardia)
• Hand tremors
• Weight loss
• Heat sensitivity or intolerance
• Sleep problems, including difficulty sleeping and fatigue
• Nervousness and irritability
• Muscle weakness
• Goitre (swelling in your thyroid gland)
• Frequent formed bowel movements
• Irregular periods
• Difficulty becoming pregnant.

Skin and eyes

Some people with Graves’ disease will develop Graves’ dermopathy, where the skin around your shins or on the tops of your feet with thicken and redden.

It doesn’t look great, and can cause some pain and discomfort. Most cases are mild.

Graves’ ophthalmopathy is a condition that develops when the immune system begins to attack eye tissue and muscle.

This leaves your eye sockets swollen and inflamed, causing the eyelids to retract.

This is why the eyes of some people with hyperthyroidism look enlarged and bulging.

You might also suffer blurred or double vision, irritated or dry eyes,
sensitivity to light, or pain or a sense of pressure in your eyes.

So why Daisy Ridley?

We can’t say for sure. But aside from genetics, the factors that may affect your chance of developing Graves’ disease:

• Stress – Ridley has been putting her body and mind under significant stress for years. Her latest film is about a famous long-distance swimmer. Which mean pushing herself through cold choppy water for hours at a time
• Age – Graves typically develops in people younger than 40
• Gender – women develop it seven to eight times more frequently than men.

Your risk also increases if you have another autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes or Crohn’s disease.

For information about diagnosis and treatment, see here.