BBC Strictly star's secret health battle she was fighting for years before 'wake up call'

contestant and Olympian has revealed she spent much of her athletic career silently suffering from an agonising health condition that once left her hospitalised and unable to walk. The 39-year-old star, who wowed fans last year on Strictly with partner Johannes Radebe and stars as Fire on , has opened up about her hidden struggle with dysmenorrhoea - a debilitating condition that causes extreme period pain. Montell confessed she's been dealing with the issue since her teenage years, admitting: "I cannot remember not suffering."

Speaking to as part of a campaign for Holland & Barrett, she said, "When mine came, I hid it for a long time because I didn't really know what was going on and I remember being in diabolical pain from the beginning." Despite being in near-constant agony, the athlete pushed on through years of elite training and competition, masking the pain until it became impossible to ignore. "Obviously people say that you're going to be uncomfortable, but what I did notice was that I was severely in more pain than other people," she explained.

The turning point came three years ago when Montell experienced a terrifying episode alone at home. "I was in severe pain, doubled over, and it wouldn't go away.

"It made me really dizzy and pass out, and intermittently while I was waking up again and conscious, just in agony, I was on the phone to the hospital to try and get me an ambulance to A&E."

She was rushed to hospital, dehydrated and in distress. "That was a wake-up call. It's not normal, I shouldn't really be hospitalised," she recalled.

Montell also described how years earlier, she was in such agony during a training drill that she collapsed in the foetal position between sprints.

Eventually, the athelete began managing her symptoms through the use of a contraceptive implant - a solution she says was more necessity than choice. "Having that wasn't really out of choice, it was like, 'This is the best option and you have to do something".

Montell's health battle didn't end there. Her athletic career has been riddled with physical setbacks, including six hamstring tears in two years, a herniated disc at 14, and major knee surgery that left her unable to walk for three months.

She later suffered a brutal injury where her hamstring was "pulled off the bone" just seven months before the Winter Olympics.

And even now, as she continues to fight in the Gladiators arena, she revealed, "I've ruptured all of the ligaments in my ankles, every single one has gone. The last one went in my first series of Gladiators on the first day of training."

Yet through it all, Montell has kept pushing forward. Her stint on Strictly proved to be another test of endurance.