After having kept it secret for a long time, Dominique Farrugia, suffering from multiple sclerosis for thirty years, talks about his illness.
- Producer Dominique Farrugia has had multiple sclerosis for nearly 30 years
- Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system
- Dominique Farrugia and his wife talk about the social impact of the disease
“I try not to bother those around me with it, there are things you have to keep to yourself”. The famous French producer Dominique Farrugia discovered that he had multiple sclerosis at the age of 29. However, the man who popularized the Robin Hood troupe kept his chronic illness a secret for a long time. “It was very difficult to admit your illness in the late 1980s. I was afraid of losing my job. I swear to you, it was really crazy”, he says. “I talked about it much later, once the creation of Comédie (the channel, editor’s note) was finished. Once all that was over (…) I talked about it because I said to myself that it was good for others but it took me a long time to do it”, he acknowledges.
“It takes time to accept the disease”
Dominique Farrugia’s wife also evokes the daily life of loved ones in the face of the disease. “It takes time to accept the disease, because it’s not fair. It’s scary. I continue to believe that all of this is punctual and that he will get better. We are fighting”, she testifies.
American actress Selma Blair also regularly publicizes her fight against multiple sclerosis via social networks. As she shows in a photo where she shaves her hair, the pathology now prevents her from raising her arms above her head, therefore from doing her hair and putting on makeup as she sees fit.
“Since my son was born, I was in a flare-up with multiple sclerosis. And I didn’t know it. I did everything I could to look normal. I self-medicated when he wasn’t with me. I was drinking, I was in pain. I was ashamed and doing the best I could as a mother. But it was killing me. When I got the diagnosis, I cried with relief.” says the Sex Intention and Hell Boy star actress.
Several symptoms
Often equated with simple fatigue or depressive symptoms, multiple sclerosis generally takes a long time to be diagnosed. In most cases, this disease progresses through inflammatory flare-ups with the appearance of one or more symptoms. This can be a lack of muscle strength in a limb (motor disorders), tingling or strange sensations in different parts of the body (sensory disorders), a sudden loss of sight (damage to the central pathways of vision) or even a balance disorder. Fatigue and urinary problems, which can go as far as incontinence, are also early signs of the disease, which generally manifests itself around the age of 30.
At the beginning of the pathology, these disorders have the particularity of regressing, totally or partially, in a few weeks. The number of patients worldwide is estimated at more than 2 million (100,000 in France, 400,000 in Europe). The disease affects more women, with a ratio of one man for about three women.
Central nervous system
Multiple sclerosis (also known by its acronym, “MS”) is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. The defense system supposed to protect the patient from external attacks turns against his own cells and attacks them for reasons that are still poorly understood. The reaction of the immune defense system is directed against “myelin”, a component of the protective sheath of nerve fibers and therefore very important for the transmission of nerve signals in the cells of the brain and spinal cord (i.e. i.e. the central nervous system).
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