The Bachelorette Clare Crowley Removing Breast Implants

“The Bachelorette” star Clare Crowley just opened up about a private medical battle she’s been fighting for “a couple years now” — a battle which has led to her decision to remove her breast implants.

In a new video shared over the weekend to her Instagram page, Crowley, 40, explained the symptoms she’s been experiencing for some time now and the frustrating process behind figuring out what was actually wrong with her.

“I’ve been going through things medically with my body that I have not had answers to, to be honest for a couple years,” she began, explaining why she’s been MIA on her social pages recently. “It’s been hard, it’s been frustrating and it’s been scary for me to not have answers and to know something’s not right.”

“I’ve kind of kept it private and just been going through it, also because being in the public eye and going through something so vulnerable is scary and hard,” she continued, saying test after test came back with nothing concrete. “It’s hard sometimes pretending things are okay when you know you’re not doing okay.”

Crowley explained that her skin has been covered in “really bad hives” and rashes, sharing photos of the irritations on her arms and around her eyes. She said she tried all kinds of remedies and antihistamines, but nothing gave her permanent relief. “My whole body is just inflamed and itchy,” she added, saying that wasn’t the only symptom she was experiencing but was “the most physical ones.”

She said “it all kind of came to a head a month ago” after an x-ray at the chiropractor led to a suggestion she get a mammogram. The mammogram and ultrasounds showed fluid sacs behind her implants.

“As much as I love my implants, my body is fighting them and recognizes it as something obviously foreign in my body,” she said. “My body can’t heal, my body is in fight mode constantly. It’s exhausting, it’s depressing, it’s frustrating.”

With this news, Crowley said her physical ailments over the past couple years are all starting to make sense. “It’s all coming together and as much as I love having these, this is so important to me that I love my health more. I love my well-being more. That’s what matters,” she said, before explaining how boyfriend Dale Moss was helping her through this time.

“I was talking to Dale the other day and he even said, ‘Your boobs are not what make you beautiful.’ And it’s the truth,” she added. “For so long, I believed that’s what it would take. We can get into that later. My health is the most important thing, so that’s where I’m at right now. They’re coming out. I’m ready to go through this.”

In the caption for her video, Crowley explained she was being open about her journey so others experiencing something similar “feel not so alone.” She added that advocating for your own health “can feel like an uphill battle” sometimes — and said she was “just so incredibly thankful” for everyone in her life showing support “not only in my peaks, but in the valleys as well.”