Jaime Pressly opened up during a recent appearance on The Talk about undergoing a mastectomy in 2011 after developing mastitis when her son was born.

Pressly, best known for starring in My Name Is Earl, stopped by the talk show to promote her new TV Land sitcom, Jennifer Falls, but then found herself telling the women about her health scare.

Jaime Pressly Reveals She Had A Mastectomy

After giving birth to her son, Dezi James Calvo in 2007, Pressly says she began feeling breast pain, and simply attributed it to breasfeeding. In fact, Pressly was developing mastitis, which causes inflammation in the breast, from a bacterial infection.

“I had something that happened to be years ago – when I had my son I got mastitis, but I didn’t know because I thought it was just regular breastfeeding pain,” Pressly said.

By the time she was diagnosed four years later, she had developed several lumps in her breasts and had to have scar tissue removed from one of her breasts. Eventually, her mastitis required multiple surgeries and resulted in what the actress describes as “almost a full mastectomy.”

“I still have some breast tissue left, just from the mastitis because it mutated into something else because it sat dormant for a while,” Pressly explained.

Mastitis doesn’t usually require a mastectomy and is reportedly treated with antibiotics.

Despite her health scare, Pressly was quick to say she knows it could have been much worse.

“It was the craziest thing! I mean, thank God it wasn’t [cancer],” Pressly stated, knocking on the wooden table.

Pressly also spoke about her decision to cut her long hair – she now sports a pixie cut – and working with Jessica Walter on Jennifer Falls.

Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.