Fiona Phillips has revealed that she and her husband were left in ‘total shock’ when doctors diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s after she feared her brain fog symptoms were a sign of the menopause.
Ms Phillips, 62, noticed the onset of crippling anxiety, confusion and brain fog at the end of 2021. Due to the nature of her symptoms, the former GMTV host saw a menopause specialist and had hormone replacement therapy.
Some of her symptoms improved, but the brain fog remained. She was examined by other specialists, spent months completing cognitive tests and ultimately received her dreaded diagnosis last year which was confirmed by a spinal tap test.
‘It was the shock. Total shock,’ she said of the moment she and her husband, TV’s This Morning editor Martin Frizell, were told of the diagnosis.
‘I just felt sick. We both sat in silence. There was no funny line to make this go away,’ Mr Frizell, 64, recalled. ‘The doctor said he’d leave us in the room alone for a bit to digest it all. We just looked at each other and said: ‘S**t. What are we going to do?’
The couple then went for a drink at a nearby bar, where they are now regulars, and were faced with the task of ‘trying to live our life as normal for now’. It is understood that Ms Phillips is taking part in a potentially revolutionary trial with a new drug that experts hope will slow or even reverse the illness for millions of people.
She is being supported by Mr Frizell, whom she married in 1997. They are parents to Nat, 24, and Mackenzie, 21. Until now, the couple had not told their children directly that their mother had Alzheimer’s.
Fiona Phillips has revealed that she and her husband Martin Frizell were left in ‘total shock’ when doctors diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s after having feared her brain fog symptoms were a sign of the menopause
Ms Phillips – pictured on GMTV with Eamonn Holmes in 1997 – noticed the onset of crippling anxiety, confusion and brain fog at the end of 2021. She saw a menopause specialist and had hormone replacement therapy. Some of her symptoms improved, but the brain fog remained
She was examined by other specialists, spent months completing cognitive tests and ultimately received her dreaded diagnosis last year which was confirmed by a spinal tap test
Ms Phillips told The Mirror last night that she had received the news of the devastating dementia Disease, which killed both her parents, around a year ago, having suffered from months of brain fog and anxiety.
The former GMTV host said the diagnosis was ‘heartbreaking’ and a ‘b****y horrible’ secret to share.
Speaking of Alzheimer’s, Mr Frizell added: ‘Tragically, Fiona’s family has been riddled with it.’
The family had initially thought Ms Phillips’ symptoms may have been related to the menopause, which Dementia UK says is not unusual as dementia and Alzheimer’s share symptoms with the menopause and perimenopause.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms in some women may develop at the same time as the menopause, which the charity says ‘can bring additional challenges when it comes to seeking a diagnosis’.
Ms Phillips said the disease was ‘something I might have thought I’d get at 80’ but not what she expected to be diagnosed with at just 61.
She added that the diagnosis left her feeling ‘more angry than anything else’ because of the impact it already had on ‘my life in so many ways’.
‘My poor mum was crippled with it, then my dad, my grandparents, my uncle. It just keeps coming back for us,’ she said.
‘This disease has ravaged my family and now it has come for me. And all over the country there are people of all different ages whose lives are being affected by it – it’s heartbreaking.’
The former breakfast TV host insisted she was ‘still here’ and hopes she can help to find a cure ‘which might make things better for others in the future’.
Fiona Phillips pictured with her father, Neville, who died from the disease in 2012
Alzheimer’s also killed her mother Amy in 2006, who began experiencing symptoms in her early 50s
Ms Phillips, pictured with GMTV co-host Eamonn Holmes, presented the show for more than a decade
Fiona Phillips hid her Alzheimer’s diagnosis from her two sons, Nat and Mackenzie, for months because she ‘didn’t want to make a big thing out of it’. She and her boys are pictured with footballer Frank Lampard during a Chelsea FC charity event in 2009
She is taking part in a trial of the drug Miridesap at University College Hospital in London – but with half the participants receiving a placebo, it is impossible to know whether she is actually being given the medication.
Her husband said he believed her condition was ‘stabilising’, but admitted this could be ‘wishful thinking’.
Meanwhile, the family is trying to keep things as normal as possible. But the changes Ms Phillips is experiencing have led to significant shifts in some ways.
She said she would no longer use transport such as the Tube as it would cause her too much anxiety. She is unable to drive and also has short memory lapses.
Ms Phillips has previously spoken about the deaths of both her parents from Alzheimer’s.
Her father Neville died in February 2012, while her mother Amy passed away with the disease in May 2006.
Ms Phillips has frequently spoken out about the disease and campaigned for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Speaking on This Morning in 2016, she told how her mother began developing early-onset symptoms as young as 53, before eventually dying at the age of 74.
Her father developed symptoms in his 60s and moved into a ‘warden-assisted’ flat, before being transferred to a psychiatric hospital shortly before his death at 76.
Speaking of the moment she started to realise her mother had the condition, she said: ‘I noticed mum’s Alzheimer’s at Christmas. She was really cold, there was no food in the house, she’d have the Christmas tree up in November so it was very unusual.’
As her father realised what was happening, she discussed his devastation: ‘Dad was beside himself and little did we know he had it too. Bizarre presents, my brother had an orange ladies jumper.’
When his father was diagnosed six years later, it was after he was arrested by the police for driving ‘erratically’.
She described the impact on the family: ‘You can’t do enough. I love my brother, but resentment comes in, families are blown apart by it. It can happen to anyone. My mum was only in her 50s.’
Ms Phillips had also talked about her fears that she, too, might develop Alzheimer’s, saying in 2017: ‘I need to sort out an action plan that can be used if I “disappea”.
‘Of course I fear inheriting the disease with my family history, and I sometimes wake up in the night feeling anxious and worried about it.
‘My parents were relatively young when they got it; my mum was in her early 50s, although at the time, we just put it down to her being eccentric.’
She also spoke of her parents decline, saying: ‘It was heartbreaking. The end is slow and undignified.’
And in 2019, she wrote a candid newspaper article in which she discussed her feelings of guilt and sadness, saying: ‘I feel I never did enough for my mum and dad. I couldn’t.
‘You can never do enough for a loved one with dementia. It’s a cruel disease with no cure, and days have no end.
‘I will never feel I did enough. That’s why I often tear up when people tell me how lucky my parents were to have me. The guilt never goes away.’
Ms Phillips began her journalistic career working as a reporter for local radio stations such as Radio Mercury in Sussex and County Sound in Surrey.
Her big break came when she moved to GMTV as an entertainment correspondent in 1993, before being promoted to be their LA correspondent in December the same year.
She then fronted the breakfast show from 1997 to 2008, being the main anchor every Monday to Wednesday.
Ms Phillips announced in 2008 that she would be leaving the show for family reasons, presenting her last show in December.
This followed the death of her mother, and came after her father had also been diagnosed with the disease.
After her father’s death, the journalist revealed she was left ‘angry’ at his care, and even referred to it as ‘manslaughter’. His rapid deterioration led her to question whether the drugs cost him years of his life.
She said at the time: ‘I am so angry at the way my lovely, lovely dad was treated at the end. In his final weeks he was so coshed by drugs that his poor body couldn’t cope.
‘They robbed him of his laughter, then his smile, which was all that he had got left, and I am absolutely furious about that. Then they robbed him of his life.
‘Maybe I’m being selfish because he wouldn’t have wanted to continue to be dependent on others.
‘But that wasn’t a decision to be made by the medical system on his behalf. Without those drugs he could still have been healthy and happy, even with dementia.’
Fiona Phillips taking part in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2005
Ms Phillips hopes that the drugs trial she is taking part in will help those who are diagnosed in the years to come
Treatment for dementia and Alzheimer’s has improved in recent years, and Ms Phillips hopes that the drugs trial she is taking part in will help those who are diagnosed in the years to come.
Despite saying goodbye to her regular slot on GMTV in 2008, Ms Phillips has frequently appeared on the network since, most famously when guest presenting Lorraine.
She has also appeared on Loose Women and reports for the BBC’s Watchdog.
She has been writing a regular column for the Daily Mirror for 20 years, and has previously discussed her family’s history of the disease in the paper.
Her fans also know her for appearing on Strictly Come Dancing in 2005.
