‘Britain’s Next Top Model’s Abbey Clancy thought she had MS

Abbey Clancy went to see a doctor convinced she was seriously ill — but it turned out her jeans were just too tight.

The British model opened up about her experience of health anxiety in a podcast appearance this week.

Clancy, 37, said she had amassed “like five doctor friends” — parents at her kids’ schools — over her constant worrying.

Her symptoms included painful numbness around her groin that she became sure was multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition affecting the brain and spinal cord that can cause problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation and balance.

When she started to feel the numbness in her lower body, she googled her symptoms and grew worried when they seemed to suggest MS.

Clancy tapped up a “top MS doctor” to find out what was going on but the news was surprising.

“It’s when I had these jeans on,” she explained to the Newlyweds podcast.

“They were so tight they would stop the blood where I was sitting down.”

Thankfully, the doctor ruled out MS but diagnosed Clancy with another condition — health anxiety.

“I’d been holding (anxiety) in so much that when I got to the doctor, I went hysterical and couldn’t stop crying,” she said.

“He was like, ‘You haven’t got MS but you’ve got a mental health issue.”

Health anxiety, also known as hypochondria, is a mental illness similar to obsessive compulsive disorder. Those affected spend a lot of time worrying that they are ill, sometimes to the point where it takes over their life.

Symptoms of the condition may include worrying and checking your body for signs of illness, such as lumps, tingling, or pain.

People with health anxiety may always seek reassurance from others that they are not sick or convince themselves that a doctor or test may have missed something. They may obsessively research health information online or avoid going outdoors for fear of contracting or spreading illness.

Clancy’s husband, retired football star Peter Crouch, who was also on the podcast, said he wished his wife would worry less.

“Health anxiety is a thing, she has got an issue with that,” he said.

“I’d like Abs to worry less.

“It feels like she takes on everyone’s problems. It’s a nice thing but it takes its toll.”

Clancy was the runner-up of Britain’s Next Top Model and went on to host the show from 2015 until its cancelation in 2017.

She and Crouch married in 2011.