J.D. Scott, older brother of HGTV’s Jonathan and Drew Scott, is speaking out about some medical problems he’s facing.
Scott, who’s appeared on “Property Brothers at Home” and “Brother vs. Brother,” made a lengthy and emotional Instagram video last week with fiancée Annalee Belle, detailing his health issues over the past 14 months.
Scott, 43, said trouble first surfaced when he checked into a hospital last May.
"That event there was so bad that I thought I was dying, actually," he said. "It was really bad, and I was preparing all my estate, and I was writing out passwords for (Belle)."
So, what exactly is the problem? No one is totally sure. Doctors thought maybe it was lupus or a brain aneurysm. Scott said a neurosurgeon told him that maybe there was “a new pathway (that) had formed” in his brain, which can happen, but is not fatal.
"I would suddenly feel like my skin is on fire," he said. "I would start passing out, and I'd be out of commission for, sometimes, days."
He received medication from a doctor to deal with what the TV personality calls “crawly feeling” in his head, which a neurologist said could be related to a condition called nummular headache.
Scott said another doctor told him he had “a pretty severe infection.” There was also the matter of him not being able to cope when temperatures hit 70 degrees.
“He said to me, ‘It is possible that you’re not suffering from one thing, that it’s a few things that are culminating into these symptoms,’” Scott said.
Scott eventually began to think he didn’t have much time left to live.
"There (were) a few times where I was pretty sure I was dying," he said.
Scott seems to be on the mend, though. He notes that antibiotics helped him, as has eliminating wheat, dairy, soy, gluten and sugar from his diet.
"I can, without a doubt, say that I think maybe about four or five days after I started all that, I started to feel a little bit better, and it's gotten progressively better and better," he said.
Still, Scott knows he’s not totally out of the woods yet.
"It's not all better by any stretch," he advised. "I don't want you think, like, 'He's cured!' but this sort of thing does take time."