Kenan Thompson opened up about his recent health diagnosis after months of silent suffering.
The Saturday Night Live star talked about his health struggle that he has been struggling with for over two years in a recent chat with People.
The comedian revealed that he was facing severe heartburn issues, which was disrupting his working days on SNL.
“I noticed that I would get hoarse a lot easier when I’m doing the show. Losing my voice quicker, but also uncomfortable sleepless nights because I’m burping up acid, just kind of hiccuping all night,” he told the outlet.
Thompson went on to say, “And that can definitely add more stress to an already stressful kind of environment doing a live show like that. So all of those factors, I was like whatever, I’ll get over it. But it just started to pile up.”
“I was able to take something and patch it up for the moment, but I got to a point where that didn’t work anymore. That’s when it got serious,” he further explained. “It was a suffering-in-silence situation. I don’t know if I was necessarily embarrassed to talk to a doctor — I just didn’t know if I needed to.”
After his symptoms became “extreme” in early 2024, he decided to visit a doctor and was diagnosed with Gastroesophageal reflux disease, also known as GERD.
“I didn’t know there was a real medical term for it,” he noted.
“GERD (acid reflux) is a disease that occurs when stomach acid washes back into the esophagus. It can cause discomfort and may lead to precancerous changes in the lining of the esophagus,” as per Mayo Clinic.
Now, after his diagnosis, his doctors recommended that he take a potassium-competitive acid blocker to manage the painful heartburn. “I felt relief pretty immediately,” the 46-year-old actor added.
