Selma Blair shared a positive update on her battle with Multiple Sclerosis, a condition she has been dealing with for years. Despite having been seen using a cane or accompanied by a service dog on red carpets, the actress revealed a significant development.
While attending The Daily Front Row’s 9th Annual Fashion Los Angeles Awards, the 52-year-old star disclosed that she is now in what she described as ‘truly in remission.’ This revelation marks a milestone in her journey with the disease.
‘I am doing amazingly well. I’ve been feeling great for about a year,’ she told People at the event held at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Expressing her improved state, Blair mentioned, ‘But I am finally well enough to really, genuinely … I always try and feel my best, but now that I actually have stamina and energy and getting out and going out isn’t so scary.’ This newfound sense of wellness has brought a positive shift in her daily life.
Selma was asked what she’s looking forward to now that she has her health back and she said she hasn’t had any dreams since her diagnosis.
‘I think maybe since the diagnosis,’ she explained when asked what she meant.
‘You’re just tired all the time. I spent so much of my life so tired from being unwell that I think I just was trying to get through the day.’
Blair continued: ‘And now it’s like, wait, I realize I don’t know what my goals are.’
She went on to say that her thoughts are ‘much more career-oriented’ these days and said she’d love to get back into acting and that is something she is actively working on.
In January, Variety reported that Blair has three upcoming movies going into production: Stay Forte, a drama about the Israel-Hamas war; a supernatural thriller called Silent; and a twin drama There There.
‘I started feeling really better this last year and I’m back at work and doing things, so I will have things to announce,” she said at the time.
Selma also wants to help other people navigate their chronic illnesses and reminding them to dream and set goals for the future, even when they are unsure if they will have a future or not.
‘I still am advocating for people with chronic illness and getting better, and what that looks like when you haven’t made your wishes. How do we give ourselves a new life force?’ she asked People.
Selma attended the event in archival Betsey Johnson to present the iconic designer with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Blair announced that she had officially been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in an Instagram post that was shared in August of 2018 and revealed she ‘hurts all the time’ because of her illness.
Multiple sclerosis (known as MS) is a condition in which the immune system attacks the body and causes nerve damage to the brain and spinal cord. It is an incurable, lifelong condition.
While Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is the name for a group of rare inherited conditions that affects the body’s connective tissue.
Selma welcomed the Labrador retriever at the tail end of 2021 and told Entertainment Tonight: ‘The thing is, I pass out a lot.
‘It’s part of the reason I have Scout and it doesn’t mean I lose consciousness [or] it’s a whole ambulance experience, it’s something that I lose my vision, gravity pulls me down and I’m very disoriented and gone for a spell.’
The recent good news came just two months after Selma discussed her heartbreaking MS relapse during a candid chat on the Drew Barrymore Show.
The star said during a past relapse she ‘didn’t want to face’ her health condition and even stopped seeing doctors.
She said: ‘I did have a relapse and I didn’t, even really want to face that.
‘So the first thing I had to do was to find a doctor again because I had stopped seeing doctors because I thought I was fine but then I didn’t feel fine it turned out I did have a relapse and so I, I found a doctor that could, really listen to me and it was a female doctor and that really helped me just so many different things I wasn’t aware of.
‘So this is just to encourage people to start talking about it.’
Elsewhere in the chat, the pair discussed dating while parenting their young children.
Drew, 49, who split from husband Will Kopelman in 2016, said: ‘I feel like funny enough in dating also I have I’ve also taken that measurement of kind of how forward, open, affectionate and I also have my whole life if I meet someone I go to could this work in the future for the long run and I don’t know if other women do that. I think a lot of do.
Selma. who has a son with ex Jason Bleick, said: ‘Now that I have a child, that’s all I think of, you know, normally people think, ‘Oh, is this person someone I could have a family with?’ I don’t want a family.
‘I mean, I have a family we’re not looking to start a new family, except I’m always welcome to, I always would want an addition to the family, but I’m not someone that’s looking to, you know, have a baby again.
‘So now I just think in terms of my son, you know, and, and also again, my health, like who’s gonna understand if I get tired and need a nap and, you know, because people you know, we, we all have gotten really selfish, you know, so it’s hard, it’s hard to find the person. I mean, I haven’t given up on romance, but I’m not knowing how to try.’
Blair went through a risky two-month hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in 2019 in order to try and jumpstart her immune system.
The treatment was to get her symptoms under control.
Speaking in a video update to UsWeekly, she said: ‘Hi. So a lot of people have been asking me how I am doing so great and my movement is so much different, and I really am excited.
‘I want to let people know that – I’m still in remission, I’m feeling great – after the bone marrow transplant, I actually fell into a major relapse.
The star also explained that an MRI ‘lit up flare’ and showed ‘new lesions’ so she had to find a new doctor.
But she felt lucky to have found a ‘great one’ who put her on an ‘amazing’ journey with medication.
She added: ‘Thank God I found a great one here in West Hollywood, Dr. Berkovich. ‘It was just tablets. So I took that, a couple short series of tablets, and in two years your therapy is done.
‘It’s called Mavenclad. It’s been amazing and it helped my movement and speech so much, and it’s allowed me to have a great summer, great years. I need you all to know. Bye.’
She recently noted that she is glad to have gone public with her neurological condition – which affects the brain and causes symptoms, such as problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance – especially now that her fellow actresses Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler have also done so as they document their on struggles with the disease on the MeSsy podcast.
She said: ‘They’re being really open about their experiences. I love that they’re doing that. They’re both good friends of mine. I love listening to them hang out and discover.’
