Laura Aikman's acting career has gone from strength to strength, with her reprising her role as Sonia in last year's Christmas special, and going on to star in diverse new roles for 's gritty This City is Ours and Disney+ show Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. However, things haven't always been so rosy, with the star even considering giving up her career altogether over an agonising undiagnosed condition.

The actress spent a long period "very, very unwell" with extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, frequent diarrhoea and even blood in her stool - but she says doctors didn't even examine her. Despite numerous visits to her GP, her symptoms were dismissed as "piles" - a condition causing swollen veins in the anus - and the cream she was given to stop the bleeding failed to work. In desperation, she sought the help of a homeopath, who subtly suggested that her career might not be working for her - but she knew she couldn't give it up as acting had become her "entire personality".

"Before I got the diagnosis I was very, very unwell and I didn't know why," she told .

After the homeopath bluntly asked: "Can you do another job?", Laura experienced a "wakeup call" about how important acting was to her.

"It was literally making me unwell, the stress of not working and feeling like I wasn't good enough or didn't have anything going on," she continued.

She persevered and eventually received the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis - an autoimmune condition which causes inflammation of the colon and even ulcers on the large intestine.

It is believed that flare-ups happen when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue in the digestive tract.

However, once diagnosed, it can be controlled with medication, and those with the condition can go into remission for periods of time, with surgery typically only required in very severe cases.

Now the days where she might have considered giving up acting are far behind her, and she's gone on to relish a challenging new role as Rachel in BBC drama This City Is Ours.

The show, about an ambitious woman drawn into a dark lifestyle amid the Liverpool drug scene, has allowed her to take on a personality she's never portrayed on screen before.

"It was the year of the b*tch," she joked of 2024, before admitting: "They're great to play."