Selma Blair shares positive update on her health amid multiple sclerosis battle

USA Today

27-04-2025

Selma Blair shares positive update on her health amid multiple sclerosis battle
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Selma Blair has great news to share about her health.
As the "Cruel Intentions" star stepped out at The Daily Front Row's 9th annual Fashion Los Angeles Awards on April 24, she told People she's "doing amazingly well" and is "truly relapse-free" from symptoms of multiple sclerosis, more than six years after she shared her diagnosis with fans.
"I've been feeling great for about a year," said Blair, 52, adding that she's "really, genuinely" feeling well. "I always try and feel my best, but now I actually have stamina and energy, and getting out and going out isn't so scary."
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Blair also shared that the improvement in her health has allowed her to think about the future in a way that she wasn't able to before.
"I spent so much of my life so tired from being unwell that I think I just was trying to get through the day," she said. "And now it's like, wait, I realize I don't know what my goals are."
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Blair announced she was battling multiple sclerosis on Instagram in 2018, saying at the time that she was diagnosed in August of that year. "I am disabled," she wrote. "I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken gps. But we are doing it."
According to the Mayo Clinic, multiple sclerosis occurs when "the immune system attacks the protective sheath that covers nerve fibers, known as myelin," which "interrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body." Symptoms can include numbness or tingling, lack of coordination and difficulty walking. There is no cure for MS, though treatments are available to manage symptoms.
"Symptoms of MS depend on the person, the location of damage in the nervous system and how bad the damage is to the nerve fibers," the Mayo Clinic notes. "Some people lose the ability to walk on their own or move at all. Others may have long periods between attacks without any new symptoms, called remission."
In 2019, Blair underwent a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, a process that "attempts to 'reboot' the immune system, which is responsible for damaging the brain and spinal cord in MS," according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. After this treatment, Blair revealed she was in remission.
"It took about a year after stem cell for the inflammation and lesions to really go down," she said in 2021. "While I am in remission, there's still maintenance and treatments and glitches and wonderful things and wonderful things I've learned. But I am in remission, I guess they call it. I don't have any new lesions forming."
In a prior health update in January 2024, Blair told fans that she was "doing well" but still experiencing pain and stiffness. "I hurt all the time," she shared. "I say that only for you people that hurt also. I get it."
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In March, the "Legally Blonde" actress stepped out at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party and walked the red carpet with her service dog, Scout.
'When I have to kneel down to be able to talk more clearly or to just kind of get my circulation on track, it made a lot more sense to have a dog by my side,' she told USA TODAY. 'He helps me just move forward, past it because once I start getting nervous or self-conscious, it all kind of devolves."
Contributing: Erin Jensen