Actor Ashton Kutcher discussed his fight with a rare form of vasculitis in Tuesday's premiere episode of the Paramount+ show The Checkup with Dr. David Agus.
"I woke up one day and was having vision issues, could hardly see," Kutcher said. "Knocked out my hearing, which threw off my equilibrium, my balance, and I couldn't walk."
The That 70s Show actor first revealed that he fought vasculitis for a year in 2019 during an episode of National Geographic's Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge that aired in August. The disease causes the body to attack its own blood vessels, causing inflammation. Vision and hearing impairment can occur as a result, as well as vertigo.
"There's a standard you become accustomed to in your life, like being able to see clearly," Kutcher said to Agus. "And then suddenly you can't see, like you have this occlusion and you can't see....You want to reclaim the health that you once had."
During the discussion, Agus brought up the support Kutcher received from his wife, actress Mila Kunis.
"I will say, your wife was amazing," Agus said.
"She's the best," Kutcher said of Kunis, 39.
As a recovery goal, Kutcher, 44, told Agus that he decided to run the New York City marathon, which he completed last month. In the process, he raised more than $1 million for Thorn, an anti-human trafficking organization he set up with ex-wife Demi Moore that works to address the sexual exploitation of children.
"Part of it is this mental thing I have around achieving a full comeback from waking up at the hospital," Kutcher said. "I was unable to walk and I was like, wait a second, if I can go from not being able to walk to running a marathon in a three-year span, then I can let that be a part of the past and be like, 'I'm back. I'm good.'"
Elsewhere in The Checkup with Dr. David Agus episode, Kutcher appeared with his twin brother, Michael Kutcher.
As a child, Michael was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, which caused his heart to be four times the size it should be. Ashton became emotional while recalling to Agus a moment when his brother "flatlined" during a hospital stay. Fortunately, Michael survived and later successfully received a heart transplant as a teenager.
Newsweek reached out to Kutcher for comment.
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