Selma Blair reveals the one simple test doctors did before getting MS diagnosis
Selma Blair revealed the one simple test doctors did before eventually getting her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis.
The 52-year-old The Sweetest Thing star has lived with autoimmune condition for a staggering 40 years before she ever received a diagnosis.
The actress first revealed news of the diagnosis to her millions of Instagram followers back in 2018 and has since become one of the most well-known faces with a disability, using her platform to spread awareness and promote understanding of the condition.
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She's since opened up about exactly what happened before she finally received her diagnosis and the life-changing 'release' she felt as soon as a doctor finally listened to her.
Blair went to see a spinal neurologist back in August 2018 after her friend caught light of her symptoms, which she shared on Instagram.
"So, I am in pretty intense pain," Blair posted on social media at the time. "Whiplash a few times on my horse and sitting on planes … and now I am in a real musculoskeletal bind.
"Hanging in though. Hoping I can rehab it and get back to riding and writing again soon. #chronicpain is a real challenge. Love to all of us."
Her friend, fellow actress Elizabeth Berkley, reached out asking if Blair was 'OK' before she revealed her list of symptoms.
"You need to see my brother right away," Berkley told told. "He’s a spinal neurologist. Maybe he can help. I’ll call him now. Stand by."
Following their chat, Blair met with Jason Berkley’s office in Beverly Hills where he performed one simple test, which was monumental in the actress finally receiving a diagnosis.
"He performed the Romberg’s test, a simple examination where you put your feet together and close your eyes," Blair recalled in a personal essay written for The Guardian in 2022.
"My legs gave out beneath me. I fell backward, dropping like a plank on to the exam room floor. He ordered an MRI on the spot."
Explaining the test, Blair wrote: "With my eyes shut, I had no sense of where I was, but gravity did. And then, finally, answers.
"The scan was my new fortune-teller. The only one I needed."
It had revealed 'a number of midsized MS-related lesions' on her brain, six of which were problematic because they were active, which Blair described as 'little fires burning from canyon to canyon on the synapses'.
"The connection between my brain and my body demyelinated," she continued. "It all made so much sense now."
Blair said she felt 'an adrenaline rush of emotion' akin to 'giving birth' after Dr Berkley told her: "You have MS."
"The release of it. The catharsis of it. But more than anything, I was overwhelmed by a sense of relief, like the way you feel when an ocean wave breaks right at the shore before taking you under," she poetically wrote.
No wonder finally getting a diagnosis was so emotional, given that 'for years', Blair's symptoms were dismissed as 'anxiety', 'emotional', 'all in her head' and 'psychosomatic'.
"For years I’d known they were wrong," she carried on. "And now I had a map to follow. I had information. A label. This time, one that fit."
Blair candidly resolved: "There are words that explain what is wrong with me. It’s not my fault.
"At least … I hope it’s not my fault. I can work with this. I can learn how to cope with this. It can’t get any worse than this. Or it can.
"I will teach myself how to be OK."
You can find out more about MS here.
Topics: Celebrity, Health, Mental Health
Rhiannon Ingle