Ashton Kutcher says he's 'lucky to be alive' after battle with 'super rare' illness

Ashton Kutcher has revealed he's 'lucky to be alive' after battling with a 'super rare' illness that took away his sight, hearing and balance.

The American actor, 44, opened up about the autoimmune disease on a recent episode of the podcast Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge. Watch below:

He explained that he suffered from a rare form of vasculitis, which causes inflamed blood vessels.

The Mayo Clinic says the condition can affect anyone and any organ, and if that wasn't already challenging enough, patients can have a long or a short term diagnosis.

"Like two years ago, I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis that like knocked out my vision, it knocked out my hearing, it knocked out like all my equilibrium," he said.

"It took me like a year to build it all back up. You don't really appreciate it until it's gone."

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While Grylls praised the actor for overcoming such extreme physical difficulties, he revealed that the situation was so dire he is now 'lucky to be alive'.

"The minute you start seeing your obstacles as things that are made for you, to give you what you need, then life starts to get fun, right?" he said. "You start surfing on top of your problems instead of living underneath them."

Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge aired yesterday (8 August) on National Geographic.

The podcast sees the British adventurer pair with a different celebrity each episode to teach them survival skills, and the first two episodes features Natalie Portman and Simu Liu.

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News of the Kutcher's battle with vasculitis comes after he opened up about his upcoming new film Vengeance, which is being released later this year.

It comes after the actor took a two-year hiatus from acting after his his Netflix comedy The Ranch ended in 2020.

"I've been running a big investment fund, investing in early-stage startup technology for like the last 15 years, and I was at a place, between that and running our nonprofit, where I kind of just lost the fun in acting," Kutcher told The Los Angeles Times.

"Then this script came and it really embodied what I felt was the state of America right now, with one perspective on the coasts and another perspective in the middle of the country and both sides vilifying one another. I thought it was really beautiful."