Radio and Australian Idol host Ricki-Lee Coulter has revealed a fresh health struggle.

Two years after going public with her decade-long battle with endometriosis, the 40-year-old on Sunday said she had been referred to a neurosurgeon to deal with bulging discs in her back, sciatica and arthritis.

“Turns out my back is pretty messed up,” she wrote on Facebook. “I have an L3/L4 Broad Based Disc Bulge, spinal canal narrowing & arthritis. An L4/L5 Disc Extrusion with narrowing of the nerve tunnel causing acute pain & sciatica down the left leg. Oh & arthritis. My L5/S1 Disc is bulging slightly, is dryyyyy as a bone & the bones have moved around it from chronic stress on the joint.

“After getting these results I was referred to a neurosurgeon & I basically have to do exactly what he says for the next two weeks and then he’ll be able to tell me if I need surgery or not …. And have been told to rest. No exercise, no sitting — I can stand and walk or lay down. I’m so bored…”

Coulter earlier this year stepped into Nova FM’s breakfast slot in Sydney as part of a network-wide shake-up, co-hosting the lucrative time slot with Tim Blackwell. The pair were most recently on-air on Thursday.

After finishing seventh in the second season of Australian Idol in 2004, Coulter racked up five top 10 singles as a solo artist and two more with the Young Divas, a group comprised of previous contestants. She moved into radio in 2008, first appearing on Nova two years later.

Coulter returned to Australian Idol as a presenter in 2008 and has co-hosted the show since 2023.