Joe Manganiello posted photos on Instagram Monday showing off a roughly three-foot dragon tattoo running from his knee to his belly button — artwork he says covers the scars from surgery tied to a seven-year autoimmune illness he's only now going public about, timed to the release of his memoir, Bloodlines.

"My effort to take back what little agency I felt that I had," he wrote, per TMZ. The actor says he's now symptom-free and off medication after an ordeal that included organ-removal surgery and a long search for answers doctors couldn't give him.