British game show star Paul Sinha has opened up about his ‘devastating’ Parkinson’s diagnosis today (14 June).
‘On the evening of Thursday 30 May, an experienced consultant neurologist calmly informed me that I had Parkinson’s disease,’ the comedian of Bengali descent, who’s openly gay, wrote in a blog post.
The comedian is only 49 years old. He stars in ITV’s hit-show The Chase, where contestants face off against ‘chasers’ to try to win money.
‘It was a devastating denouement to a medical odyssey that began in September 2017 with a sudden-onset, frozen right shoulder, and took in an unexpected diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, a lifestyle transformation that enabled me to lose two stone, and a shoulder operation in January this year.’
The comedian had been touring in New Zealand May 2019 when he became increasingly worried about his health.
‘Behind the facade of the cheerful, late-night comedy festival drunk was a man deeply scared about facing the truth when back in the UK.’
After the diagnosis, he was forced to cancel his prior engagements at Edinburgh Fringe and miss the World Quizzing Championships in order to have brain scans.
Sinha, however, says he is now confident about the future thanks to the support of his loved ones. The comedian is in an open relationship with his fiance, a fellow quizzer named Oliver.
‘With the diagnosis now confirmed, and a treatment plan in place, I now feel far more prepared for the new challenges ahead,’ he also wrote.
‘I have an amazing family, no strangers to serious medical illness, I’m blessed to have a fiance who is there for me, and I have a multitude of friends and colleagues whom I consider to be exceptional human beings. I don’t consider myself unlucky, and whatever the next stage of my life holds for me, many others have it far worse.’
