Is Maxie on General Hospital sick? Star character's weight gain explained

General Hospital stands at a tricky point right now, as far as Brook Lynn and Maxie are concerned. Played by Kirsten Storms, Maxie is angry at Brook for the latter’s pretension to be Bailey’s mom. She may be able to forgive her, but they can never be friends again.

Maxie, an important character in the narrative of General Hospital, has been around since 1990. After being portrayed by different actresses over the years, Storms took over in 2005 and has been playing her since then, although with a break here and there.

Apart from her acting, the actress’s dilly-dally weight on the show raised one question: Is Maxie sick? No, she is not sick but has suffered a lot of medical conditions over the years.

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Storms, aka Maxie of General Hospital, suffered a lot of health problems over the years

When Storms joined General Hospital in 2005, she had a lean frame. In 2011, when she left the show on an extended medical leave, Jen Lilley was called as a replacement. At the time, the reason wasn’t revealed.

Later, when Storms was scheduled to return to the soap opera, she told the media that endometriosis was the reason for her absence.

Endometriosis is a painful medical condition when the tissue responsible for the womb lining grows outside the uterus on the other organs. This forced her to be on a year-long leave. Her next hiatus was for four months from January 2014 due to pregnancy.

Storms reportedly took another short break in 2016 from the ABC show due to a skin problem. She told Soap Opera Digest in August of the year:

“(The) breakouts were due to stress but shouldn’t take too long to get under control. I don’t think it was something that was in anyone’s control. My skin had just gotten to a point where it was telling me and my body that I needed to take a break.”

In March 2017, Storms again took a leave, citing “personal reasons,” only to return six months later. The “personal reasons” weren’t elucidated, but portals deduced that probably it was again to take care of her dermal issue.

Five years later, Storms was seen with a neck brace, raising a lot of questions. The actress addressed the same via an Instagram Story, writing that she was recovering from surgery conducted on the “lower portion of my brain.”

Apart from these, she was also tackling her mental ailment, about which she spoke at length in 2022. Recalling the “really dark and bad time” that lasted for almost two years, the Days of Our Lives star said that before she was diagnosed with Bipolar I, she knew it wasn’t depression but that. Further, the wrong medication worsened things for her. Eventually, all of these combined contributed to the weight gain.

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General Hospital will air season 60, episode 362, on Thursday, September 21, 2023, at 11.30 pm.