Waiting to appear on a live TV chat show, actress Fay Ripley suddenly realised she was in serious trouble.

'Without warning, I felt as if I was going to faint,' says Fay, star of hit dramas including The Return Of Reggie Perrin and Cold Feet.

'My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. I started to sweat and then I was hit by a wave of nausea.

'I knew it couldn't be a panic attack as mentally I felt fine, so I desperately tried to think if I had eaten something dodgy, but all I'd had was a cappuccino.

'Looking in the mirror, I remember saying to myself: "I just don't know how I am going to do this". But, somehow, I managed to get through two shows back-to-back, although I'm still not sure how.'

That incident earlier this summer was in fact the culmination of six months of vague but increasingly severe symptoms, including stomach cramps, headaches, nausea and sickness. These had left Fay exhausted and worried about her health.

'At first the symptoms were low level and non-specific,' recalls Fay, 43. 'They were all easy to put down to something else.

'When I had stomach pains, I thought it was a bug picked up from the children. If I had a headache, well, I had been working too hard and what working mum doesn't have the odd headache, anyway?

'But as the symptoms got worse I began to worry more. I went abroad with the children and spent a day here and there in bed being sick or with bad stomach aches.'

Not long after her TV experience, Fay went on a family cruise. 'For most of the holiday I was quite ill,' says Fay, who lives in London with her husband, actor Daniel Lapaine, and children Sonny, three, and Parker, seven.

'It was all the usual symptoms but worse: I was light-headed and dizzy, had stomach pains and an upset stomach. With young children I had to get on with it but I spent most of the holiday feeling like some old maiden aunt moaning away and resolved that when I returned I was going to have deal with this problem for good.'

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