A triathlon star from Crickhowell isn’t letting a potentially fatal condition stop her from succeeding and wants to warn others of the silent bone disease.

It wasn’t until 23-year-old Issy Morris had her contraceptive implant removed that she realised it had been masking one of the biggest symptoms of a condition called RED-S, relative energy deficiency in sport.

Both the Nexplanon contraceptive implant and RED-S can cause irregular menstrual cycles in women so Issy didn’t notice this symptom.

The Welsh Team GB triathlete was training 20 hours a week and performing her best so it was easy to overlook other symptoms such as fatigue.

After six months of having her implant removed her period hadn’t returned.

She began speaking to specialists and having scans which is when they discovered she had osteopenia, a condition affecting bone density and the stage before osteoporosis.

Issy said: “I was listening to a lot of nutrition podcasts that were talking about the importance of having your mensural cycle as an athlete so I decided to have the implant removed.

“When my period didn’t come back, I had a scan that showed osteopenia.

“My bones were completely hampered from not having enough energy for all of the exercise I was doing in my system but I just had no idea.”

“With RED-S you get faster and you start performing better, but what you’re doing isn’t sustainable.

“Your body isn’t getting enough fuel so it comes a point where your body is going to stop.

“So, your menstrual cycle shuts down because your body is trying to preserve the essential functions it needs.”

After competing in triathlons for 15 years, Issy was gutted when she had to stop excising altogether for a year.

But aware how vital it was to ensure she could return to doing what she loved in the future, she stopped.

She said: “It was really tough to not do what you love especially when you haven’t got a broken arm or something like that.

“It’s affected me massively because right now I’m training and I just don’t have that aerobic base which is so important for triathlons.

“But I’m back to full training now with the help of medication to help protect my bones.”

Despite having to take a year out of training, Issy made the Common Wealth Games in the European Championships last year exceeding everybody’s expectations.

Due to missing any of the warning signs, it is only down to Issy investigating RED-S herself that she has caught the condition before it turned into osteoporosis.

She’s hoping she has caught the condition with enough time to prevent long term damage.

She said: “Had I not done my own research into RED-S I could be sat here right now with osteoporosis which would definitely affect me long term because that is hard to come back from.