Mikayla Matthews/Instagram
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Mikayla Matthews Opens Up About Her Chronic Illness
Mikayla Matthews, one of the stars of Hulu’s new series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, struggles with eczema. After fans learned more about her in the reality show, she opened up about the chronic illness and what she dealt with during filming.
Mikayla, 24, shared a carousel of photos via Instagram on September 7 that included photos of what the severe eczema flare ups looks like. In one image, Mikayla can be seen with large red splotches covering her face and neck, while another showed her arms covered in welts, raised red bumps on the skin.
“What you didn’t see on the show,” the mom of three wrote. “Showing up for filming the whole first season was not only physically exhausting but extremely mentally challenging and watching the show it’s very obvious I was fighting for my life, not only cause I’m surrounded by crazy women lol but because I was really really struggling.”
Mikayla continued, “I want to continue to shed light on the many stages of my chronic illness and chronic illness in general. [I] hope to come back again [in] SEASON 2 and share my full story.”
Some of her Secret Lives of Mormon Wives costars like Taylor Frankie Paul and Demi Engemann rallied around her in the comments.
“Excuse me,” Taylor, 30, wrote and added a heart-eyes emoji.
Demi, 30, added, “So damn proud of you!!”
This wasn’t the first time Mikayla has shared her struggles with the disease. The California native has chronicled the issues she’s had on social media for a few years. In 2023, Mikyala revealed that she’s dealt with chronic eczema since she was a young child. However, she explained things took a turn when she decided to get breast implants in March 2023.
Mikayla’s implants began causing severe flare ups with her eczema and she got emotional when discussing her struggles in a May 2023 TikTok video.
“I’ve been struggling the last couple weeks with my surgery, I had a whole bunch of issues with recovery … I don’t want to leave my house. … When I had eczema outbreaks when I was a kid, like, it was so humiliating for me. … It just burns and itches everywhere,” Mikayla said. “Now it’s moving to my face which is just so, so lovely and fun. … I know it’s easier said than done to just not feel insecure about your insecurities, literally as I sit here crying about my insecurities, but I really am more confident than I’ve been.”
Ultimately, Mikayla opted to have her implants removed less than a year later. While it didn’t cure her eczema, the explant surgery made a big difference in how she was feeling. She shared updates with her followers, including how removing the implants had an almost-immediate effect.
“I want to show you guys my face before and after [the surgery,]” Mikayla said in a video posted on January 12. “It’s kind of crazy to see … My redness was just gone. I was still puffy because surgery always makes me puffy, but the redness was pretty much gone. It was just dried out and I had, just, color back in my face again.”
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