Abby Lee Miller’s doctor is speaking out about her recent hospitalization.
Weight loss surgeon Dr. Michael Russo, who reportedly performed the Dance Moms star’s gastric sleeve surgery in 2017, revealed the underlying case of her pain and why her condition is getting worse.
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According to Entertainment Tonight, Miller’s current situation “is not a good one,” after a source revealed Miller had been taken to the hospital on Tuesday for a lingering back injury.
Russo revealed Miller’s pain stems from severe hypothyroidism, which occurred after she stopped taking one of her thyroid medications.
“Her hypothyroidism got so severe she had an assortment of symptoms. Most dramatic is severe muscle and bone pain in her back, shoulders, arms and legs,” Dr. Russo revealed. “When Abby first went to the ER, she was almost unable to move [her] arms and legs and was having trouble getting out of bed. She had numbing and tingling in her hands and feet. She couldn’t even hold a spoon in her hand.”
“Hypothyroidism can give you severe muscle cramping, weakness and pain. You can have severe difficulty moving your arms and legs. If left untreated it’s been reported people can become comatose,” he added. “This is a serious medical concern.”
Russo said Miller was instructed to stop taking her thyroid medication by another doctor at the end of January, but the condition has led her to the emergency room twice now.
“The good news is we got it addressed quickly. She’s already feeling better because we are supplementing her medications back in and she is on the road to recovery, but a lot of damage was done,” he said. “An additional consequence of being off the medication is that hypothyroidism can cause weight gain. This almost undid part of her gastric sleeve surgery and caused her to gain a bit of weight back. But she is back on track and getting back to where she was in January.”
Miller reportedly returned to the halfway house where she has been staying after her prison release Wednesday.
After being indicted in 2015, the reality personality was sentenced in May 2017 to one year and one day of prison for bankruptcy fraud, as well as bringing over $100,000 of Australian currency into the U.S. without reporting it. She was released early on March 27 and was sent to a halfway house in California.
She is scheduled to be released from the halfway house on May 25.
After the hospitalization, Russo revealed his focus is to get Miller “back to where she was at the end of January, when she was down a whole bunch of weight and excited to get back to her life.”
He says Miller had lost almost 100 pounds since undergoing gastric sleeve surgery last year, and after meeting with him on Wednesday, she’s in “better spirits.”
