In December 2022, Celine opened up about being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder called stiff-person syndrome (also known as “stiff-man syndrome”). The condition can cause painful muscle spasms and involuntary stiffness. Pray for her.
Celine Dion
“While we’re still learning about this rare condition, we now know this is what’s been causing all of the spasms that I’ve been having. Unfortunately, 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,” the singer said in an Instagram video.
Dr. Richard Nowak, an assistant neurology professor at the Yale School of Medicine, said the condition “has a range of severity, from quite mild — easily managed with a little bit of medication — to folks that are quite severe that can be, frankly, quite disabled from it.”
Celine Dion
Stiff-person syndrome overall disrupts the normal pathways of communication between the brain and the muscles.
“There’s a massive firing that’s occurring from the central nervous system, down through the spinal cord, down through the nerves as they plug into the muscles, and it’s causing them to become rigid or go into spasm, which equals the stiffness,” Nowak said.
In most but not all cases, people with stiff-person syndrome have elevated levels of antibodies that target a particular protein involved in the process of controlling muscle function. Doctors consider these patients to have an autoimmune condition.
“In stiff persons, the pathways that are attacked are the brake pathways, so you’ve lost your brakes on your muscles,” said Dr. Simon Helfgott, a rheumatologist at Harvard Medical School. “Once your muscle starts to contract, it doesn’t have a way to stop itself from contracting.”
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