Ashton Kutcher 'lucky to be alive' after battling rare illness

Ashton Kutcher has said he is "lucky to be alive" after a rare illness affected his sight, hearing and ability to walk.

The Hollywood actor spoke about his battle with vasculitis, a condition that involves inflammation of blood vessels, in an interview with Bear Grylls.

He said: "Two years ago, I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis that, like, knocked out my vision," Kutcher told Grylls.

"It knocked out my hearing. It knocked out, like, all my equilibrium."

The 44-year-old actor added: "You don't really appreciate it until it's gone, until you go, 'I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to see again; I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to hear again; I don't know if I’m ever going to be able to walk again'.

"I'm lucky to be alive."

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What is vasculitis?

Vasculitis is an inflammation of the blood vessels.According to the NHS, inflammation is your immune system's natural response to injury or infection.

It causes swelling and can help the body deal with invading germs.

However, with vasculitis, the immune system attacks healthy blood vessels, causing them to become swollen and narrow.

The triggers for this are often unknown, but can be for infection of medicine.

Vasculitis can range from a minor problem that just affects the skin, to a more serious illness that causes problems with organs like the heart or kidneys.

Depending on the type of vasculitis (which range from microscopic polyangiitis to polyarteritis nodosa) symptoms can include but are not limited to:

• Asthma

• Muscle or joint pain

• Headaches

• Loss of appetite

• Double vision or vision loss

• High temperature

• Night sweats

• Diarrhoea

• Shortness of breath

• Pins and needles

• Ulcers in the gut

Following the episode, Mr Kutcher took to Twitter to say that he had since "fully recovered" following his bout with vasculitis.