Note: This story was first published on Wednesday May 16
Toni Street has opened up about her acute liver failure, telling the co-hosts of her radio show that it feels like "spiders underneath your skin".
Today's new information from Street, a broadcaster, comes after a Facebook post on Sunday revealing she'd been struggling with illness over the past month, then on Monday Street's radio colleagues gave an update on her condition.
Street, who had been in and out of hospital in recent weeks, today told her Hits co-hosts she had an adverse reaction to some antibiotics.
"The worst part about it is the insane itching because basically what happens is that your liver stops working and instead of the bile excreting normally like through your urine, it goes all throughout your skin and so you get this incredible itching," she said.
"It's described to me by the specialist as 'spiders underneath your skin' and that is exactly what it's like and there is nothing you can do about it."
"The second week I was hosting the Commonwealth Games for TVNZ, I would get home at 1.30 in the morning and I couldn't get to sleep until about 5.30 in the morning because I was just itching."
"I would put myself in the shower, and honestly, it was just so insane. Anyone who has had that liver itch will understand."
Street says she is on the mend and targeting a return to work on Monday after her latest test results indicated the bile levels in her body are going down.
"I feel like I am finally healing and my blood tests on Monday say it's been going down so I couldn't be happier," she said.
"I still have the itching but it's not as insane… I can almost deal with it now. It's not as bad as what it used to be. So I am still getting the fatigue and the itch and really bad nausea.
"They say it takes four to eight weeks and because I have been talking about it publicly, I have had people come to me saying that they have had to have two months off work because of it and that has made me feel slightly better.”
Street said she has been so sick that she has been "a complete hermit" for five or six weeks, with the condition leaving her so fatigued that she needed to sleep for two hours after a 200m walk to take her daughter to school.
She also recommended that people ask more questions of their doctors when they prescribed antibiotics.
"If you are wondering what the antibiotic is, it's Azithromycin and a lot of people have actually reacted to it."
"It's quite a hard antibiotic so just be cautious next time - kust ask some questions and perhaps just take it if you absolutely need it."
"I kind of took it because I had laryngitis and I didn't want to have no voice for the Comm Games and in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have."
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