Celine Dion recently revealed during an emotional video that she posted to Instagram on Thursday, December 8th, that she is dealing with a rare neurological disorder called “Stiff person Syndrome.”
Dion stated, “As you know, I’ve always been an open book. And I wasn’t ready to say anything before, But I’m ready now… ’I’ve been dealing with problems with my health for a long time, and it’s been really difficult for me to face these challenges and to talk about everything that I’ve been going through.”
She went on to say that due to severe muscle spasms that “affect every aspect of my daily life,” she will be unable to re-start her tour in Europe in February as she had planned. All of her spring 2023 dates will now move to 2024 and 8 of her summer 2023 shows have been cancelled altogether.
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Stiff Person Syndrome, or SPS, “SPS is characterized by fluctuating muscle rigidity in the trunk and limbs and a heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as noise, touch, and emotional distress, which can set off muscle spasms. Abnormal postures, often hunched over and stiffened, are characteristic of the disorder.” According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, SPS only affects one or two out of a million people.
The best current treatment is a regimen of anti-convulsant and valium as well as intravenous treatments aimed to reduce stiffness and lower sensitivity to touch, noise and stress. The treatments are able to improve symptoms, however, a cure is not yet known and sufferers are often subject to frequent falls because of a lack of the usual defensive reflexes.
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