Gloria Hunniford said that she was gravely unwell with renal sepsis and a chest illness after missing two weeks from Loose Women.
Gloria, 82, explained why she hadn’t been seen in a while as the show premiered on Tuesday.
‘I’ve been sick so to see the audience and you girls I am happy to be here because I’ve had kidney stones,’ she said.
Gloria addressed the crowd, explaining the incidence of kidney stones and stating that many would have family members who had encountered them.
She then reflected on what happened as she became increasingly unwell.
‘When a specialist says to you “it’s fine and we just put a camera up and a laser and we blast the stones to dust”, and it comes out and “that’s it” so you think it sounds very simple but wrong in my case anyway,’ she said.
‘I didn’t feel myself and then they said the stent would come out and I would feel fantastic and I’m thinking “thank goodness” for that.
‘But next thing I knew being carted off to A&E because they couldn’t get my blood pressure above 73 which is very low, and I wasn’t far from critical.’
Gloria went on to say that she didn’t mean to sound dramatic, but she grew so ill that she suffered renal sepsis and a chest infection.
‘With me it was like somebody turned a tap and took all my energy away and it’s taken me a week or two to get better.’
Gloria had another significant health scare last year after falling at home in June.
The presenter tripped over a rug in her home and ended up with a shattered eye socket and a seriously bruised leg after falling over ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend.
Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV.