Grammy-winning singer Celine Dion revealed on Dec. 8 that she was recently diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder known as rigorous syndrome. In an emotional video posted to Instagram, the 54-year-old pop star explained that she’s been battling health issues for some time, including severe and persistent muscle spasms that hamper her performance.
“Unfortunately, the spasms affect all aspects of daily life, sometimes making it difficult to walk or using your vocal cords to sing as you normally would,” Dion said in the video. rice field.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), muscle spasms are a common symptom of rigorous syndrome and are also characteristic of autoimmune disorders, estimated to affect fewer than 5,000 people in the United States. .
“For some reason, the body starts fighting itself in an autoimmune-like way, attacking the nerves in the muscles, [them] Decimir Mijatovic, M.D., a pain specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, explains.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the core and abdominal muscles are usually the first to stiffen. Muscles in the limbs and even the face can be affected. Depending on the area of the body affected, “it can make it difficult to move around,” Mijatovic says.
Stimuli such as noise, stress and touch can cause tight muscles to spasm. (These spasms can also occur for no apparent reason.) Some people experience spasms so severe that the force generated breaks bones or causes them to fall, he said, according to the NIH. says.
WHO IS AT RISK?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, stiff person syndrome is extremely rare, affecting 1 in 1 million people. Symptoms range from mild to severe and can occur at any age, but the condition is most commonly seen in adults between the ages of 30 and 60.
Twice as many women as men are affected by stiff person syndrome. This disorder is associated with other types of autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, thyroiditis, vitiligo (loss of skin color), pernicious anemia, and breast cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid cancer, colon cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, etc. It is also more likely to occur in people with certain cancers. lymphoma. Scientists don’t know the exact cause of stiff-person syndrome, and they don’t know how to prevent it.
