Essex-born garden designer, horticulturalist and TV presenter Adam Frost has, in recent months, made several candid revelations about his experiences of fibromyalgia, a debilitating health condition that affects more than 2 million Britons.
He talked about it during an episode of the BBC’s Morning Live in October 2024. And he gave a tell-all interview with the Daily Mail in February 2025.
In the latter, he also spoke at length about his wife Sulina’s battle with sepsis, his daughter’s eating disordered behaviour, his own bout of depression, and how, for him, Gardeners’ World is more than just a feel-good show. It’s a lifeline.
Adam Frost’s debilitating fibromyalgia battle began 20 years ago
“For most of my life, I’ve considered myself pretty fit. And healthy,” Adam Frost said at the beginning of a segment on his experiences of fibromyalgia for the BBC’s Morning Live, which aired last year in October.
“But, around 20 years ago, I started to experience some unusual symptoms. I started to experience these very odd pains.”
He told the Daily Mail recently that he had “sharp pain all over the place. I wasn’t sleeping”, he said. “I was absolutely shattered.”
“They started in my neck, back, shoulders,” he said on Morning Live. “Like this throbbing, and it moved through the rest of my body. On top of that, I wasn’t sleeping very well. I’d go to work, come home exhausted.”
For two years, doctors couldn’t work out what was ailing him. Eventually, he got a diagnosis for fibromyalgia. It was a “huge relief,” he said, “for about five minutes”.
It was another 12 months before he was able to have any kind of real treatment, he says.
Fibromyalgia affects the way the brain and spinal cord process pain. In doing so, it amplifies pain, and is often accompanied by fatigue, as well as memory and mood issues.
His psychiatrist told him he should ‘choose a coffin’ amid depression struggle
A few years ago, Adam Frost suffered a period of depression. He went to see a psychiatrist, and told him he’d thought about retiring.
The response took him by surprise.
“He told me I’d be dead in 18 months,” Adam told the Mail. “He said: ‘If you’re thinking about retiring, go up the high street, there’s an undertakers, go in and choose yourself a box.’ And I thought, you’re supposed to be helping me!”
But it changed his perspective. Adam recalls his dad telling him about the importance of having busy hands.
“I’m a grafte. But I have a different mindset now: I get up to have a nice day. Why would I retire? Retire and do what? Garden? At least this way I get paid for it!”
Everything came ‘crashing down’ during the covid pandemic
Covid triggered a crisis in Adam Frost’s family, leading to an emotional breakdown.
His wife Sulina, whom he first met in the 1990s when she was working as a manager at John Lewis, was in hospital for 12 weeks with sepsis. It was especially scary, he said, as he was the only one who was allowed to visit her in hospital.
Then his daughter, aged 15 at the time, started suffering from an eating disorder, and self-harming.
“I was just trying to hold everything together. Then I caught Covid. I went into a room on my own for 10 days and my brain, all the adrenaline I’d been living on – everything came crashing down. I was sitting in a corner bawling my eyes out.”
A mental health specialist told him he needed to be kinder to himself. His life is different now, and weirdly, he said “getting locked in that room for 10 days was one of the best things to happen to me”.
If this story has affected you, you can contact Samaritans on freephone 116 123, or get in touch by emailing [email protected].
Gardeners’ World is on Saturday February 22 at 9am on BBC Two.
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