Ulrika Jonssen has opened out about her history of taking pain relievers, claiming that she came dangerously near to suicide while on them.

With boys Cameron, 27, and Malcolm, 13, and daughters Bo, 22, and Martha, 17, the 54-year-old TV personality is a mother to four children.

Ulrika has suffered in silence for the past 15 years from a persistent back pain that has grown in intensity and led her to attempt a variety of medications and treatments.

The actress claims that epidural injections, which are commonly used after childbirth, helped her cope with the agony, but that the impact was only temporary.

Ulrika wrote an essay for The Sun about her problem, claiming that her back discomfort caused her to suffer from high tension, anxiety, and panic attacks, and that painkillers enabled her to relax.

She was given codeine, an opium-derived medicine, but she is concerned that other prescriptions given by the NHS, such as tramadol and fentanyl, are contributing to a probable opioid addiction problem in the UK.

Ulrika wrote about her own agonising back pain and how she had two low times while battling it.

She said: “One was when I couldn’t be left alone with my two-year-old son because if he fell over or hurt himself, I was incapable of lifting him up or going to his aid.

“He would often have to be brought to me in bed so I could spend time with him because at times I struggled to move.”

“The second low point was when I just didn’t want to go on with life itself,” she continued, detailing how her thoughts had turned absolutely black.

“The thing that saved me was a friend whose breast cancer had come back a second time. My conscience was pricked by the ungratefulness for wanting to end my life at a time when my friend was so desperately clinging on to hers. They were dark times.”

She adds: “Greater discourse is needed — due to opioids’ addictive nature but also because they cost the NHS so much money.”

She went on to explain that while she believes some opioids have been beneficial in helping NHS patients cope with various ailments and aches, she is concerned that an opioid epidemic will soon sweep the UK, as it has in parts of the United States.

Ulrika welcomed her first kid, Cameron, when she was 27 years old, after she married her first husband, John Turnbull, in 1990 at the age of 23.

She divorced John in 1995 and began dating footballer Stan Collymore, then German hotel manager Marcus Kempen, with whom she has a son, Bo.

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