Nearly a year after Selma Blair learned she had multiple sclerosis, she found herself “out of options” to relieve the intense pain and physical difficulties she had because of her condition.
The actress and advocate said that her treatments had been largely unsuccessful at that point. During a panel at the TIME 100 Health Summit in New York City on Thursday, Blair, 47, said:
“The disease modifiers did not work for me at the time, and I was really declining more rapidly than I found acceptable.”
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In her search for options, she was encouraged to try a stem cell transplant and an “aggressive” course of chemotherapy to restart her immune system, but Blair was wary, saying:
“I had no intention of doing it, I was like, I’m not ruining my body, what’s left of it. Why would I put this horrible drug, chemotherapy, in me? I don’t have cancer. But I was kind of out of options and I was looking.”
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Blair was given a “microdose” of chemotherapy just before her stem cell transplant, and “immediately felt some relief.” That convinced her to go through with it, but it was a major risk. She said:
“I was warned. You kind of make your plans for death, [and] I told my son I was doing this and he said he wanted me cremated. I had more chemo than they usually do for cancer patients, because they almost kill you. And it’s the stem cell that allows you to live with that amount of chemo. The chemo is the MS cure, if it does in fact happen.”
