In a recent interview with British Vogue, Selma Blair spoke about how she coped with MS after her diagnosis despite managing it without an official label for 40 years. Since her announcement in 2018, she has become a force to be reckoned with in the MS community, even encouraging Christina Applegate to get tested.
Blair claimed that while growing up, she used to have episodes of uncontrollable laughter, and this took a turn for the worse as she grew older. At first, the actress thought she was emotionally unstable, because she had no prior knowledge of the disease and how it had affected a part of her brain.
Selma Blair is now an advocate for Multiple Sclerosis
After her time on the set of Kath & Kim came to an end in 2009, Blair suffered an auto-immune attack which resulted in Alopecia — loss of hair and general body weakness. This forced her career to end early, as she struggled with her daily routines.
RELATED: Selma Blair Responds To Critics Calling Her ‘Narcissistic’ For Documenting MS Battle
The actress claimed that during the period, she spent most of her days in bed, crying and seeking medical help despite having fears that any diagnosis would render her incapable or mentally unstable. “I gave up almost until the diagnosis,” she confessed.
Selma Blair motivated Christina Applegate to get tested
Also, Christina Applegate revealed to British Vogue that when she told her friend, Blair, about how she was feeling, the 50-year-old encouraged her to seek medical attention. “I was sitting in Selma’s living room, our children playing,” she told the publication, “and I told Selma I’d been having this weird tingling in my feet.”
However, despite the initial skepticism from Applegate’s doctor, Blair’s guess was proven correct when the test results returned positive, and she was diagnosed with MS in 2021. Applegate expressed her profound gratitude to Blair for encouraging her to take the test that led to her early diagnosis. “Because of her, I’m going to have a better quality of life,” she said.