Celine Dion was so desperate for pain relief from severe muscle spasms during her secret, nearly two-decade battle with the rare neurological and autoimmune disease Stiff-Person Syndrome that she took near-fatal doses of Valium in search of relief. In her hour-long special on NBC on Tuesday night (June 11), Dion said she took up to 90 milligrams of the drug, which is used to treat anxiety, seizures and muscle spasms, more than double her usual dose. recommended daily dose.
“I didn't know, honestly, that it could kill me. I'd take, like, before a show, 20 milligrams of Valium and then I'd walk from my dressing room backstage — it was gone,” Dion said of the immediate pain relief the drug provided. “At some point, the thing is, my body got used to it in my 20s and 30s and 40s. [milligrams] until it went up. And I needed it. Relax my whole body. For two weeks, for a month, the show went on… but then you get used to it [and] it doesn't work anymore.”
Dion took such high doses of Valium every day that, she said, the amounts “can kill you. You can stop breathing.” The 56-year-old singer said she started to reduce her intake during the COVID-19 pandemic when people went into lockdown and she couldn't perform.
Although she leaves the door open during the special to return to the stage this year, Dion has not appeared on stage since March 2020, when the global pandemic arrived just in time to give her time to focus on health her and to be weaned. the dangerously high doses of Valium. “It was a chance for me to take a break,” he said. “Don't be brave… I stopped everything with the help of the doctors. I was weaning myself off all meds, especially the bad ones. I stopped everything because it stopped working.”
Although doctors helped her wean herself off the drugs, Dion noted that even that procedure can kill you if not done right. “You can't stop everything,” he said. Another downside, she revealed, was that once she was weaned off the drug her symptoms got much worse.
Dion said symptoms of the chronic, incurable disorder began to appear in the mid-2000s, and gradually worsened until she finally revealed her struggle in a December 2022 announcement after canceling her planned tour that year.
In NBC's emotional special, Dion describes how she became afraid when symptoms of the disorder began to affect her in 2008, affecting her mobility and causing convulsions so severe they caused broken ribs and sometimes felt like “someone was strangling you ». In a terrifying moment, she said “anything” could be causing the painful symptoms. “Too much work, not enough work. If I sit all day I will wobble. Wobbly walking'. Shockingly, Dion said even happy times could lead to pain. “Happiness, sound, a touch unexpected,” he said.
She described first noticing her body symptoms becoming “stiffer” during a show in Germany on her Take Chances world tour in 2008. “I told my assistants and my people, 'I don't know if I can do the performance. I don't know what's going on,” she told Kotb, sending her voice into a higher register to mimic the effects on her voice. “I was very, very, very scared. And then you panic, and the more you panic, the more you convulse. I went on stage… of course. And I started to sound more nasal.”
She said the panic led to more spasms, which forced her to turn down the keys on some songs to gain some control over the situation, lamenting having to lie to her adoring fans at the time by blaming her problems on a sinus infection. . During the pandemic, Dion's team struggled to figure out what was going on, with symptoms persisting even after she stopped performing and the singer worried she could be facing the end of her four-decade career.
It was at that point that he began working with filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky on the upcoming Prime Video documentary I am: Celine Dion (June 25) where she vows to find a way to get back on stage for her fans. “If I can't run, I'll walk,” he says in the film. “If I can't walk, I'll crawl… I won't stop.” On the NBC special, Brodsky spoke about witnessing one of Dion's attacks in person, saying it happened quickly and then, just as quickly, he proceeded in a terrifying manner.
“He was laughing and five seconds later, we were in a completely different stratosphere,” Brodsky told Kotb. “She had a cramp in her leg and I thought, 'It doesn't look right.' Then, a few minutes later, Dion was unable to speak because her body had become too stiff. “It was the most unusual and extremely uncomfortable moment of my life. As a filmmaker, but also as a mother, as a human being, because I didn't know what was going on,” Brodsky said. “We were so close, and her body was taking something that was unimaginable, and I wasn't sure if she knew it, and I wasn't sure if she was going to survive.”
You can watch the full NBC News interview with Dion now on Peacock.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/celine-dion-nbc-special-muscle-spasms-stiff-person-syndrome-dangerous-dose-valium-1235707862/
