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Selma Blair shares incredible update on her health 7 years after being diagnosed with MS

“Getting out and going out isn’t so scary.”

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Selma Blair announces she is "truly relapse free" from MS symptoms.

Actress Selma Blair has claimed a major victory in her battle with multiple sclerosis. The Legally Blonde star, 55, who was diagnosed with the neurological disorder that effects the nervous system in 2018, shared in a new interview with PEOPLE that she has been "truly relapse-free" from her multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms. She told the publication, "I've been feeling great for about a year."

Blair struggled for years to pinpoint what had been causing her ailments due to on and off MS symptoms. "It's like relapse remitting, so it can relapse and it can remit, and so as a kid you'd get something checked and then you'd go back [and] it's not quite there, but you're left with the shadow of it," she shared with PEOPLE in April 2025. When she finally received an MS diagnosis, Blair was "thrilled." She told the publication, “I finally just felt seen."

Her MS symptoms previously required her to use a cane for support. In May 2023, she posed for Vogue UK with her cane, telling the publication that it was "an extension of me." Instead of her cane being a source of shame, she chose to also use it to advocate for others who used them. "So many younger people have started publicly embracing their sticks more. I do think representation matters. If I can help remove stigma or over-curiosity in a crowd for someone else, then that's great."

selma blair, ms, celebrity, gif, famous, healthEmmy Awards GIF by EmmysGiphy

Blair also got a service dog named Scout to help with her mobility. Blair referred to Scout as a "tremendous gift" in another interview with PEOPLEin May 2022. She added, "He's with me all the time. If I fall into a big [muscle] spasm or have some trouble moving and need to recalibrate, he can get between my legs, help me get up, and balance me. It's given me a lot of independence."

Now, nearly seven years later, her health has vastly improved. "I always try and feel my best, but now that I actually have stamina and energy and getting out and going out isn't so scary," she recently told PEOPLE.

selma blair, cane, ms. multiple sclerosis, health, celebrityPeoples Choice Awards GIF by NBCGiphy

With her MS symptoms at bay, Blair added that her focus can now turn back to her career--something that has been on the backburner as her health took precedence. "You're just tired all the time. I spent so much of my life so tired from being unwell that I think I just was trying to get through the day," she shared.

Now that she is feeling better, Blair plans to get back into acting and "would like to write now a young adult book." And without her daily battles with MS symptoms, she has also started to think more about the future. "It's funny, I haven't spent enough time having dreams. And now it's like, what are my dreams?" she said.

Selma blair, actress, MS, health, wellnessseason 1 celebration GIF by PortlandiaGiphy

Although Blair's MS symptoms have subsided, she added that she will continue to speak up about those still struggling with chronic health problems. "I still am advocating for people with chronic illness and getting better, and what that looks like when you haven't made your wishes. How do we give ourselves a new life force?" she shared.

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Heroes

Doctors just used HIV to cure 'bubble boy' disease.

Remember the Bubble Boy from the '70s?

One of the more famous cases in medical science, David Vetter was born in 1971 with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), which made him extremely vulnerable to germs and disease. So, 20 seconds after he was born, he was put into a sealed, plastic chamber. He remained in there until the age of six at which point he was given a plastic suit designed by NASA so he could move around more freely. Still, a plastic shield separated him from the rest of the world until he died at age 12 after a bone marrow transplant, one of the only other known treatments for the disease, failed.

[rebelmouse-image 19470792 dam="1" original_size="353x269" caption="David Vetter in his plastic suit. Photo via Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]David Vetter in his plastic suit. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

While the bone marrow transplant may have helped, it doesn't cure SCID, and and can even lead to more complications.

Today, however, a true cure for SCID is within reach. And it comes from an usual place — another infamous disease.

According to new research that was developed at a Tennessee hospital, when scientists collected bone marrow from babies with SCID and corrected the defect gene with an altered version of an HIV gene, the disease was eradicated.

Most babies that formerly had the SCID gene were discharged from the hospital after one month, declared SCID-free.

Since then, they appear to be living healthy lives out in the world, free from their confining plastic protection.

"These patients are toddlers now, who are responding to vaccinations and have immune systems to make all immune cells they need for protection from infections as they explore the world and live normal lives," Dr Ewelina Mamcarz of St Jude, an author of the study, said in a statement.

This isn't to say that HIV should now be regarded with reverence, but this medical first just goes to show,  incredible discoveries can be born from anywhere — even a potentially deadly disease.

4 moms rejoiced when the Obamacare repeal bill failed. Now it's back, and they're furious.

Angela Eilers wanted to believe the push to upend the Affordable Care Act was finally over.

While "skinny repeal," the GOP's last attempt to gut the law, failed in July, she sent a handwritten thank-you note to every senator that voted against it. She saved the most elaborate and effusive for John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, the senators who broke with their own caucus to vote the bill down. Eilers was relieved for her daughter Myka, who was born with pulmonary stenosis, a congenital heart defect that required open-heart surgery to treat, and for her family, which she says can afford private market insurance thanks to the law.  

Still, she couldn't relax.

"I never let myself think that they weren’t going to stop," Eilers says. "I knew that they wouldn't stop until they got this done."

Her fears have come true with the most recent GOP push to replace the ACA. Eilers finds herself feeling disheartened and, perhaps most ominously, "defeated."

"Yesterday was the first day that it hit me really really hard," she admits.

With Senate Republicans taking another shot at Obamacare, many parents of children with chronic medical conditions are at their wits' end, trying to cope with having to fight, once again, to preserve their access to treatment.

What began as resolve has, for many, evolved into a growing sense of powerlessness — and anger.

"If these people lived on a pediatric cancer floor for weeks, months, or longer, they would reconsider their positions on health care because it is gut-wrenching," says Karen Lee Orosco, whose daughter was diagnosed with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of childhood cancer, when she was 15 months old. Even with an intact ACA, Orosco had to crowdfund her daughter's surgery and is incensed that the new bill penalizes her home state of California with deep funding cuts.

Kate Greene, whose son Eddie suffers from severe hemophilia A, worries about returning to a time when those with the disease had to change jobs and move across state lines to afford, or even receive, coverage. Despite having visited her member of Congress with her family, she now makes 10 calls to them a day.

"I want Eddie to know I did everything I could to protect him," she says.

The most recent proposal, dubbed "Graham-Cassidy," includes drastic cuts to both Medicaid and the ACA's subsidies.

An NPR analysis found that the bill would allow states to permit insurers to omit the Affordable Care Act's essential health benefits from plans and deny or significantly upcharge consumers with pre-existing conditions.

The potential new law could also permit plans to bring back lifetime caps on coverage, a major fear for parents whose children have already exceeded them.

Frustration at the proposed cuts extends beyond the parents of young children.

Pat Nelson, whose 33-year-old son suffers from an aggressive form of brain cancer, says that calling her senator, Marco Rubio, which she does daily, feels like "hitting my head against a brick." She and her retired husband help her son cover his already sky-high medical bills, which she worries will explode if the bill becomes law.

"We would have to come up with more to pay for his healthcare," she says.  I'm not sure how we will be able to do that.

The fate of the bill continues to hang by a thread, as the key swing votes from July have yet to commit one way or another.

While Collins is seen to be leaning against the measure, neither McCain nor Murkowski have given more than a few clues about their vote.

On Sep. 20, a spokesperson for Mitch McConnell's office announced the majority leader's intent to hold a vote soon, leading some observers to believe the holdouts could be convinced to support the new proposal.

Until then, many say they have no choice but to keep fighting for their kids, exhausted as they may be.

Despite her despair over the bill's return, Eilers was buoyed when Jimmy Kimmel, a fellow "heart dad," used his opening monologue to rail against the bill Tuesday and accused bill co-author Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy of lying "right to his face."

"He was angry, like us, like the rest of us," she says. "He was angry that this could impact his child. And I appreciated that."

Next week could bring relief or more fury.

In the meantime, Eilers plans to keep sending her representative a picture of Myka every day until the bill is either dead or law.

After all, she wonders, what else is there to do?

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Family

This summer camp might seem like any other, until you meet its campers.

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Whether it’s chasing frogs, scaling the climbing wall, or arts and crafts, everything about the Albert and Ann Deshur JCC Rainbow Day Camp seems typical — until you learn about the campers.

Summer camp is considered a rite of passage for many children, but we often forget that it can be inaccessible to kids who are sick or living with a disability.

Designed for children with medical conditions that require special attention, like cancer or sickle-cell disease, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, camp keeps nurses and doctors on staff so the kids truly have the best chance at "getting to be a kid for a day" for two days each year.

Counselor David, camper Alex. Photo by Josh T. Decker.

Siblings, who can sometimes be overlooked when their brother or sister needs more attention or care, are also invited.

They get the chance to totally let loose, an opportunity they don't always have when medical bills are high and private camp isn't always an option.

Only child? No problem — they can bring along a BFF.

"We’re used to dealing with a spectrum of needs for each kid," says Rainbow Day Camp director Lenny Kass.

Taking each kid’s unique challenges into account, the camp is committed to creating an experience that allows any kid in attendance to participate, no matter their limitations.

Scooter campers: Melvin, Adam and Memphis. Photo by Josh T. Decker.

But can a single camp experience really impact the kids, or is it just fun and games?

While an illness like cancer can really crush a child’s spirit, making connections at camp and embracing new experiences helps many of the kids walk away feeling lighter.

"There was a child in the clinic [who didn’t] speak much," Kass remembered. "He would hardly talk at all. Here at camp ... [we] literally could not keep him quiet."

Pool campers: Melvin and friend. Photo by Josh T. Decker.

There are many stories just like that, of kids who left Rainbow Day Camp with an outlook very different from where they began. And that's the magic of a camp like this — these kids are more than their illnesses, and creating a space for them to be themselves can do wonders.

Dr. David Margolis, a regular fixture at the camp, noted that it’s not just the kids who experience these transformations either. "This is soul food for the staff," he said.

"Some have gone on to become medical students and residents here."

Camper Athena (this was her last day of treatment!) and Dr. Stephanie. Photo by Josh T. Decker.

Parents, too, find joy in seeing their kids come out of their shells, living as children instead of as "patients."

As passionate as he is about supporting kids with diseases, Kass and his team are still invested in a future where a place like Rainbow Day Camp won’t be needed.

"We’d never have to have a camp because there’d be no kids with cancer," he said. "I hope it will be in my lifetime."

For now, he's content with "making even one child’s day phenomenal."

Making a difference in someone’s life can be as simple as that.

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