Photo: Celine Dion’s doctor urges more research on SPS
Dr Amanda Piquet, who is Céline Dion’s doctor for SPS, recently shared details about the incurable disease.
For those unversed, Céline Dion recently revealed her diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome, a rare autoimmune neurological disorder that most commonly causes muscle stiffness and painful spasms, per John Hopkins Medicine.
In a new chat with People Magazine, Amanda revealed, “It’s a hard disease to diagnose because it’s not well recognized by the medical system.”
She also explained that symptoms of this syndrome intersect with many other diseases, and so it is more commonly misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease.
Quoting its likeliness to Parkinson’s disease, she continued, “This is a rare disease, and it can look a lot like other things. So at first, when the muscle spasms start, they tend to just come and go, and it can mimic many other neurologic diseases.”
Speaking of the incurable nature of SPS, she also shared, “A lot of my patients are so determined to just find better treatments for this disease because it is just so devastating.”
“We don’t have FDA-approved therapies for this disease. While we use these treatments, everything is off-label,” the skilled medical practitioner added.
In conclusion, the doctor urged the need for more research on this syndrome, which affects an estimated 2 in every 100,000 people.
“I’ve certainly had patients that have clear improvements with these therapies, but we need clinical trials and research to tell us what truly is best,” Amanda declared before moving to another topic.