LOS ANGELES — Actress Selma Blair has gone public with her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
In a social media post on Saturday, Blair, 46, said she decided to go public with her diagnosis after a costume designer on her Netflix series showed amazing kindness in helping her into a costume.
"She carefully gets my legs in my pants, pulls my top over my head, buttons my coats and offers her shoulder to steady myself," Blair said on Instagram.
Blair said that kindness prompted her to tell others about how’s she’s handling the disease, which she was diagnosed with in August.
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"I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken GPS," she wrote on Instagram.
“I don’t know exactly what I will do, but I will do my best,” she said.
Blair, who has starred in such movies as “Cruel Intentions,” Legally Blonde” and “Hellboy,” said MS has not gotten her down.
“I am in the thick of it, but I hope to give hope to others. And even to myself.”
She said she was overwhelmed when she was first diagnosed with MS and that she wanted to sleep all the time, but Blair said she’s more adjusted now.
“I have MS and I am OK. But if you see me, dropping crap all over the street, feel free to help me pick it up. It takes a whole day for me alone. Thank you and may we all know good days amongst the challenges,” she said.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system that is unpredictable and often disabling, according to the National MS Society.
There is no known cause or cure, but researchers believe it is triggered by environmental factors in people genetically predisposed to the disease.
More women than men suffer from the illness, and most are diagnosed between 20 and 50 years old.