Stanley Tucci's thyroid was 'burned out' by radiation treatment
Stanley Tucci is still feeling the effects of the cancer treatment he underwent several years ago.
Stanley Tucci's cancer treatment "burned out" his thyroid.
The 64-year-old actor underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy after a tumour was discovered on the base of his tongue, and though his treatment ended several years ago, he's still feeling the effects now.
Speaking about filming the new season of 'Searching for Italy', he revealed in the latest episode of 'David Tennant Does a Podcast With…..': “I would be so tired in the afternoon, like completely exhausted by one o’clock.
"I was like, ‘Something’s wrong with me.’ Finally, when it was all over just before the last one, I had a blood test and I was like, ‘I know something’s f****** wrong with me.’ And my thyroid was non-functioning.
"What happened was because I had radiation six, seven years ago, it burned out my thyroid. So, it’s only just happening now."
After flagging the issue to his oncologist, Stanley was relieved to hear that the fatigue he was experiencing was a symptom of the radiation treatment and is thankful to have been successfully treated for the thyroid condition.
He said: "It's human, I still get [tired] in the afternoon.
"Literally, you can’t think, you can’t move. And once I started taking the pill, it made a huge difference. I want to get back to where I was.
“It is normal, and especially now I’ve just turned 64.
“I mean, there are times when I don’t want to do f****** anything.”
The 'Conclave' actor - who has 25-year-old twins Isabel and Nicolo, and Camilla, 21, with late wife Kate, as well as Matteo, 10, and Emilia, six, with spouse Felicity Blunt - previously admitted he was keen to explore alternative therapies to treat his cancer but his wife was "adamantly against" the idea.
Stanley - whose first wife died of breast cancer in 2009 - told The Guardian newspaper: "I didn’t want to do the treatment, because I knew a lot about cancer treatments. I’d seen it. I wanted to do alternative treatments. But Felicity was adamantly against it.
"Look, I’d also seen that alternative treatments don’t work. But, unfortunately, a lot of people try alternative treatments at the 11th hour. And so the alternative doctor gets this f****** corpse, basically. You get cancer, you do standard of care treatments. And then a lot of people die anyway.
"And what people will say is cancer is just too strong. Right? If you do alternative treatments and you die, they say, ‘See, those alternative treatments don’t work’. They never say that about the chemotherapy. Some alternative treatments do work for people.
"We don’t know enough about them. A lot of it’s bulls***. But we have to really look at the system and what’s really right for each individual patient. Each cancer is different, each person is different."
