Soon after the 2012 London Olympics it was reported that Joo Se Hyuk was very sick, which also affected his performance during the Olympics. He suffers from a rare disease called: Behçet’s disease.

Here is a quote from Joo after the Olympics from the Korea Times:

Quote:

Joo, 32, said he received treatment for phlegmon cellulitis. “But I thought that something went wrong since there was few signs of recovery. The initial diagnosis turned out to be wrong. Later, my illness was diagnosed as Behcet’s Disease.
“Behcet’s Disease is a chronic disease. Therefore, I had to play, tolerating the pain,” Joo said..
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Joo is one of my favourite player and I’m a big fan of his, so this was very upsetting news, and I really feel for him! We had quite some discussion about this on the OOAK forum, and we decided to start a thread to try and collect “get well” messages from his fans worldwide. We collected many very personal messages, and with the help of members birding&table.tennis, nexy and Adham Sharara we managed to get the messages to him!
Joo kindly responded to our messages, and you can read his response on the OOAK Forum Here.
It’s fantastic that he’s getting better, and I was so very pleased that our great hero took the time to respond to our messages! By:
 ~~~