WEYAUWEGA – When Sandy LeNoble saw Celine Dion sitting rigidly, holding back tears, telling the world she was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome in an emotional Instagram video, LeNoble knew it took many takes for Dion to get through filming.
LeNoble, 46, could feel her own body getting stiff and her hands sweating as she anxiously shared her own diagnosis with the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin over the phone a week after Dion’s emotional announcement.
LeNoble, who lives in Weyauwega, is one out of about a million people like Dion diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes painful spasms and muscle stiffness, according to Johns Hopkins.
Twelve years and several misdiagnoses later, watching Dion’s video was a painful memory for LeNoble, remembering how she felt when she was learning to cope with the disorder.
LeNoble first started realizing something was going on when she began falling but couldn’t explain why. Sometimes on the way to dropping her son off at preschool, she would start sweating profusely, feel shaky and fall to the ground.
“When I get anxious, it would throw me into these spasms where I would be so stiff and rigid,” LeNoble said. “Just putting on my shoes was hard.”
The symptoms continued to progress until they started consuming LeNoble’s life over the last two years. There were times LeNoble’s spasms would become so severe around her waist and trunk area that she would pass out from the pain. The episodes could sometimes last…
