For a decade, YouTuber Alfie Deyes has shared the trials and tribulations of living with acid reflux with his millions of fans—unaware he was actually suffering from a much rarer, and more serious, condition.
The 32-year-old, who is engaged to fellow vlogger Zoe Sugg, has been diagnosed with oesophageal achalasia, a rare condition which affects less than twelve in 100,000 people.
Achalasia causes paralysis in the oesophagus—the tube which connects the mouth to the stomach—meaning that food is unable to make the initial stages of its journey through the digestive tract.
Being unable to eat normally has hugely detrimental affects on a person’s overall health, and the disorder can indirectly cause weight loss, mineral deficiencies, and muscle wastage.
Explaining the condition, Mr Deyes, who shares two daughters aged 4 and 1 with Zoella, said: ‘So basically what happens is that when you swallow food, obviously it goes straight down your oesophagus and into your stomach.
‘But at the top of your stomach there is a ring of muscle like a sphincter [a type of muscle that guards opening and closing of an internal tube] on your oesophagus.
‘The muscle here at the top of my stomach at the bottom of my oesophagus was too tight that it wasn’t letting my food through.
‘So, when I say that I feel like my food was stuck in my throat, it was literally stuck in my throat.
‘And if I would eat a burger, the whole burger, obviously chewed up and everything like that, would be sat in my oesophagus.
‘And then slowly throughout the day it would like drip through into my stomach. It never just went through into my stomach all of this time.
‘And that’s what caused my acid reflux.’
Mr Deyes said that some of his 3.6m followers shared their concerns that he was starting to look frail in the comments section of his posts, and it made him start to worry he wasn’t just dealing with chronic heartburn.
In a new video, he said: ‘Occasionally I’d see comments on the vlogs that were like “Alfie you’re losing weight. Are you okay?”
‘And I’d sit there and read it and be like “It’s because I just can’t eat enough of my meals.”’
Mr Deyes admitted that he had been struggling with his food intake for years, and it was stopping him from enjoying life to the fullest with his loved ones—trips to restaurants and coffee shops became overwhelming.
He said: ‘I’ve been trying to solve it as best I can and seeing different doctors to try and get to the bottom of it over the years and I just couldn’t get it under control.
‘It basically got to the point over the last three years where I just couldn’t finish meals.
‘And sometimes I would start a meal and have one mouthful, and my food would be like stuck.’
Increasingly concerned, he turned to his partner of twelve years for help.
He said: ‘At the end of 2024, I was just like, “Zoe, this is just getting too much now, isn’t it?” And she was like, “Yeah, this is really getting too much Alfie.”‘
While scrolling on TikTok, he saw a video of a woman having a barium swallow test—which involves swallowing chalky liquid whilst having an x-ray, to identify any blockages or internal issues.
It sparked hope that he might be able to get answers.
He said: ‘I was like, “I haven’t had that done. I need that done”. Like at this point I’m like I just want anything, anything done.’
He found a doctor in Brighton—near the couple’s five bedroom Sussex countryside mansion—who specialises in swallowing disorders and booked an appointment with him.
Mr Deyes said the practitioner told him that ’99 out of 100 of these tests’ proved to be fruitless—but unluckily for him he was the 1 per cent.
The test began with him drinking some of the chalky water, before standing and lying on an X-ray table, changing positions, so that any blockages or issues became apparent.
Although he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to swallow the opaque liquid, surprisingly quickly the health professional saw exactly what the problem was.
‘I promise you, within, no more than 10 second he’s like “Oh yeah. I can see what it is. I can see what’s going on,”‘ Mr Deyes said.
‘And I was like, “What?”
‘And he was like, “Yeah, I can see everything, look let me turn the X-ray so you can watch it whilst you’re doing it and you swallow the liquid and watch the X-ray whilst it’s happening live.”
‘And obviously at this point I’m like absolutely mind blown because I’m about to potentially have a solution for this issue that I can’t even explain the effect on my life that it has had for the last 12 years if not more,’ he said.
Of the moment, he explained his mind was rushing with every thought from over the past 20 years of how it was he’d thought it was something could fix like stress.
‘I’d like beat myself up about this so much. [I was] inside the constant battle of you’re doing this to yourself every single day. And I wasn’t.’
Much to Mr Deyes’ relief, he was able to undergo a simple procedure to cure his condition and make eating normally possible again.
He was referred for further tests, including ones to rule out anything sinister—which thankfully came back clear.
After, he had a procedure under sedation which loosened the muscles that were too tight.
He explained: ‘You basically have a camera down the throat, but instead of just a camera, they’re doing an X-ray at the same time.
‘And then on the end of basically the camera, they put a balloon.’ This balloon, he said is pumped which and dilatated to ‘basically loosen the muscle’.
‘I think it took four minutes, or six minutes, I can’t remember, and then it was done.’
In some people, he explained, it can loosen the muscles for a couple of days, months, years or even forever—it differs from person to person.
Showing the op was a success, he posted a clip from the end of May which showed him eating—and swallowing—normally.
