Joe Manganiello is pulling back the curtain on his health journey.
“So some of you may know, yesterday People.com announced that I had written a new memoir, and I just wanted to take a few moments to talk about that a little bit,” Manganiello, 49, said in a Wednesday, June 24, Instagram video.
He continued, “So for the better part of the past decade — most people don’t know this — but I suffered in silence, battling a deadly mystery illness. And other than a very small circle of family and friends, I hid it from the rest of the world, and until recently hadn’t really shared what I’d gone through.”
Manganiello explained that he saw “the best doctors in the world” but that the medical professionals could not explain what started his illness.
“All of their attempts to treat it with high-powered biologic drugs only exacerbated my symptoms and then unlocked a host of brutal side effects that have [been] plaguing me for years. In attempts to buy myself time, I underwent very serious operations and procedures that mutilated parts of my body and left me so weak at times that I couldn’t stand up or walk,” he said. “I spent months and months heavily medicated while dealing with excruciating boughs of chronic pain.”
Manganiello went on to detail the contents of his new memoir, Bloodlines, which is hitting bookshelves on October 13.
“It documents my 10 year search for answers and expands the globe, and also backwards in time as I expand on my understanding of my family’s history and make some absolutely unbelievable discoveries as I wake up to the idea that maybe what happened to me wasn’t random,” he said. “And that in order to heal, my mind, my body, my spirit all had to align and I needed to become open to some really radical and unorthodox techniques and ideas that lied beyond the boundaries of western medicine.”
Manganiello shared that his wish for his book is that it will give others “hope” and “connect dots in ways that I couldn’t at the beginning of my struggles.”
“So if you’re out there and you’re suffering, then there’s hope,” Manganiello said. “And hopefully you will get something out of it. So thanks for listening.”
Manganiello captioned his upload, “A few words about my memoir BLOODLINES, now available for pre-order on Amazon.com, and wherever else books are sold. In stores October 13th…”
