Selma Blair says she suffered with MS symptoms for years, but doctors thought it was leukemia
- Selma Blair said she suffered with MS symptoms as a child, but doctors thought she had leukemia.
- The actress, whose memoir comes out next week, wasn't diagnosed until her 40s.
Selma Blair is opening up about her traumatic childhood, including sexual abuse, alcoholism, and physical pain she now knows was an early sign of multiple sclerosis.
"I had so many things that were so indicative of MS," the 49-year-old actress told Today's Savannah Guthrie about her early symptoms. "Doctors thought I had leukemia. I didn't, but it was a constant high fever."
"The ailments as a kid connected," she added. "I do know for sure I had it by the age of 23. It was definitely there for so long."
But Blair, whose memoir "Mean Baby" comes out next week, wasn't diagnosed with the autoimmune condition until 2018. The "Cruel Intentions" star has talked about how numbness in her legs during a fashion show signaled something was really wrong.
"When I first stepped out. I couldn't feel the ground or how to lift my left leg," she wrote on Instagram. "My brain was trying to compute. As I walked the runway, stunned."
Six months later, Blair was diagnosed. MS is chronic nervous system disease in which the immune system attacks nerve fibers' protective covering. It can worsen over time and lead to a range of symptoms, including numbness, vision and speech problems, fatigue, and pain.
While there's no cure, various treatments can help. Blair has undergone chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, which she detailed in her documentary, "Introducing, Selma Blair."
"The pain is still there," she told Guthrie. "I'm in remission, I built no new lesions. I still have, you know, some brain damage and things that are there, but I'm OK with it. I'm grateful because I'm doing so much better."