These spasms affect.
Every aspect of my daily life.
Sometimes causing difficulties.
When I walk.
And not allowing me to use.
My vocal cords to sing
the way I'm used to.
Fighting back tears, Céline Dion
revealed to her millions of fans that
she's been diagnosed with a very rare
neurological disorder called stiff person
syndrome and she won't be able to tour.
She said she's working hard with her sports
medicine therapist every day to build back
her strength and ability to perform again.
The singer said.
This syndrome effects quote something like
one in a million people joining us right now.
Doctor Shininger Connors,
Menu Board certified neurologist
from UC San Diego Health,
to talk about this.
Doctor Cotterman,
thanks for being with us today.
It's good to be here.
You First off, get right to it.
What is stiff person syndrome,
how do you get it and what are the symptoms?
Stiff Person syndrome is a rare
progressive but treatable neurological
disorder that's autoimmune,
it's immune mediated,
it is caused by the immune system.
There's usually no trigger that we know
of and it's main symptom is stiffness,
especially up the back muscles and
it can spread to the arms and legs.
And one of the most common other
symptoms is a these spasms that
are very painful and it can stop
a person from moving normally.
Being able to do their normal activities.
So this is a person's own immuno
system misfiring and attacking
its neurological system.
That is correct.
The immune system turns on
your body specifically attacks
your brain and spinal cord,
and there are certain nerves
within your spinal cord that are
responsible for your muscles relaxing.
And because those specific nerves are
being injured by the immune system,
your muscles cannot relax,
which results in the spasms
and how debilitating it can
stiff person syndrome be? What?
What does it mean to patients daily life?
Unfortunately, it can be very debilitating.
The earlier you get diagnosed and treated,
the better the outcome it can be.
If it's diagnosed early, it can be,
you can get it under control with treatment.
But if there's a late diagnosis
or if it's under treated,
it can actually progress
and be quite debilitating.
Even a patient can become
wheelchair dependent or bedridden.
You said it can be treated.
How is it treated?
What are the what are the pathologies
or the the ways to attack it?
Yes, treatment has three prongs.
One is to actually give a immunosuppressant,
so actually a disease modifying drug.
We start out with typically steroids,
immuno, intravenous immunoglobulin,
even plasma exchange and then
typically transition to a long
term drug like rituximab.
And then the second prong is to
actually give medicines to help
with the spasms by calming down
the muscles by giving medicines
like Baclofen or benzodiazepines.
And the third one is physical therapy.
So there is treatment,
but is there a cure for this?
Unfortunately, there's no cure
for stiff person syndrome.
There are treatments.
Dr Connors been so you you haven't
seen Céline Dion in person.
You haven't seen her charts
understand where she's at.
But for fans out there who are seeing her,
maybe you've seen the video.
What can we hope for, for her?
Can we expect to see her back on the stage?
It seems like Miss Dion is actually being
treated by a group of physicians who are
trying to help her as much as we can.
We all hope for a good recovery from mission,
but she is going to be a struggle for her.
It's going to be a day-to-day road and I
hope that she will get to be back on stage.
Doctor Shininger Connors,
man with UC San Diego Health,
a board certified neurologist.
Thank you for shedding some light
on the situation we've heard.
Céline Dion is going through right
now with stiff persons disease.
We thank you for your time. Thank you.