Danielle Lloyd has given an emotional interview on ITV's Lorraine, alongside her mum Jackie.
Currently pregnant with her fourth child – a boy, whose gender was revealed live on Loose Women back in April – Danielle spoke of how her mother's 'invisible illness' was limiting the quality time she got to spend with her grandchildren.
Jackie was diagnosed with the condition fibromyalgia, which causes sensitivity to pain as well as fatigue and headaches, two years ago, but has been suffering with chronic pain for six years. Because of her poor health, she laments, she hasn't been able to be as hands-on with her younger grandchildren or with Danielle's current pregnancy.
'Obviously now I'm due to have another baby, she would usually be there for me,' Danielle told Lorraine during the segment. 'I really, really rely on her.'
'My mum's moved in with me, she's lived with me to help me with my children. It's just really sad to see because even playing with the children, they don't understand that nanny's going through a lot of pain. So even grabbing her hand and holding onto her and wanting to play with her in the swimming pool when we go away, it's all stuff she can't do anymore. It's really sad.'
Welling up on Lorraine's sofa, it was clear to see that Jackie is struggling to come to terms with the reduced role she has to play in her grandchildren's lives.
'Four years ago, [the condition] started to get worse,' explains Jackie, who initially dismissed her bodily aches and pains and hot flushes as the onset of menopause. 'I was just so tired I couldn't even get out of bed. The slightest little thing like trying to hold a cup or walk down the stairs, the pain was just horrendous.'
'I thought it was the arthritis increasing.'
She added: 'It's a silent illness, it's an invisible illness. Everyone says, "Oh you look so well". It takes your life away. I haven't got control of my life anymore, the pain controls my life.'
Having played a signficant part in Danielle's previous pregnancies with ex-husband Jamie O'Hara, Jackie says of her first with current partner Michael O'Neill: 'I won't be able to help as much but I will be there.'
The pair are trying to raise awareness of fibromyalgia and are currently running a petition to have the condition recognised as a registered disability by government.
