Ozzy Osbourne details ‘agony’ of living with Parkinson’s disease

‘You think you’re lifting your feet, but your foot doesn’t move – I feel like I’m walking around in lead boots,’ musician said

Ozzy Osbourne has opened up about the “agony” of living with Parkinson’s disease.

The singer and former Black Sabbath lead first publicly revealed he had been diagnosed with a “mild” form of the disease in January 2020.

Parkinson’s is a condition in which parts of the brain gradually become progressively damaged over the years. The three most common symptoms are involuntary shaking of parts of the body, slow movement and stiff and inflexible muscles.

In a new interview with The Guardian, Osbourne revealed he has suffered from depression, blood clots and crippling nerve pain as a result of the disease.

In June, he underwent a procedure to have two metal plates in his spine removed. Osbourne’s wife, The X Factor judge Sharon explained that the screws had come loose and were chipping away at the bone, causing his back to hunch.

“With the pressing on the spinal column, I got nerve pain. I’d never f***ing heard of nerve pain!” Osbourne said.

“You know when you’re a kid, and you’re playing with snow and your hands get really cold? Then you go in and you pour on hot water, and they start getting warm? And you get those chills? And it f***ing hurts? It’s like that.”

“It got so bad that at one point I thought: ‘Oh God, please don’t let me wake up tomorrow morning.’ Because it was f***ng agony.”

Osbourne detailed how the disease has affected his ability to walk, and how he struggles to control parts of his body.

“You think you’re lifting your feet, but your foot doesn’t move. I feel like I’m walking around in lead boots,” he explained.

Aside from the physical effects of Parkinson’s, the ailments that come with the disease can also wear on a person’s mental health. In Osbourne, it led to depression.

“Nothing really felt great. Nothing. So I went on these antidepressants, and they work OK,” Osbourne said.

The musician said the most difficult part of living with the disease is how it progressively affects different parts of his body. To counter this, Osbourne said he has learnt to “live in the moment”.

“Because you don’t know [what’s going to happen],” he said. “You don’t know when you’re gonna wake up and you ain’t gonna be able to get out of bed. But you just don’t think about it.”