This Was the First Sign of MS "Sopranos" Star Jamie-Lynn Sigler Noticed
The actor kept her diagnosis a secret for almost 15 years.
Throughout much of the '00s, actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler starred as Meadow, the firstborn and troubled child of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), in the hit HBO series, The Sopranos. At the height of her acting career, in the middle of the show's run, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Initially, the star kept her diagnosis a secret and went on to fight the neurological disease privately for about 15 years. She publicly revealed that she has MS in 2016 and has been a vocal advocate for people like her ever since. In discussing her experiences, Sigler has also shared the first sign she noticed that something was wrong, leading her to see a doctor and eventually learn of her condition. To hear more about the 40-year-old actor's history of MS and how she manages it today, read on.
RELATED: Selma Blair Reveals the First Sign She Had Multiple Sclerosis.
Sigler felt heaviness and tingling in her leg.
In 2002, when she was 20, Sigler came home after filming an episode of The Sopranos and went to take a shower. As she was stepping in, she felt a strange, heavy sensation in her leg.
"It was that feeling right before you get pins and needles, that weird tingling, like your legs are asleep," she told WebMD in 2016. Sigler experienced a similar feeling when she had Lyme disease in 2001. "I didn't know if this was a relapse or what it was," she continued.
After a night in the hospital, Singler was told by a doctor that she has MS, a disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body.
According to the National MS Society, numbness, or the feeling of your limb being "asleep," is a common symptom of MS. Other commonly observed symptoms include fatigue, vision problems, and difficulty walking.
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Sigler "was in denial" about her MS until her symptoms worsened.
Immediately after her diagnosis, Sigler did not experience symptoms. While speaking to Glamour in 2016, the actor admitted that she "was in denial" about the disease. "I didn't take my medication. I didn't want to live a life thinking about MS because I wasn't symptomatic," she explained.
In 2005, amid her divorce from her husband of two years, actor AJ Discala, Sigler began to feel new effects of her MS. To WebMD, she noted that she was having balance and bladder problems, along with feeling weak on her right side. As managing those symptoms became more difficult, Sigler reached out to a medical professional in the entertainment industry for help.
"He told me, 'I'm going to pretend you never told me you have MS, and you are never going to tell anyone at work. You will get fired. No one will hire you. People will judge you. Keep it between us,'" she told WebMD.
She took that extreme advice and hid her MS at work by blaming her pain on a bad back and her Lyme disease. Her Sopranos co-star Edie Falco even visited Sigler in the hospital without knowing that MS was the reason for her being there. "When I found out that she had MS, it broke my heart," Falco recalled to WebMD. "Just knowing how difficult it must have been to go through that."
Sigler kept her diagnosis private outside of work, as well. She noted to WebMD that she "never involved anybody in [her] life with [her] disease," which took a mental toll on her.
"I became incredibly depressed," she explained. "I was back to living alone and confused and scared about life in general, not just the MS."
RELATED: Christina Applegate Does This Every Day Since Her MS Diagnosis.
She even considered quitting acting.
After The Sopranos ended, Sigler continued acting in TV and movies. She still feared that people finding out that she was living with MS would lead to her being treated differently, however. At one point, she considered quitting acting altogether.
"I thought that work wouldn't come anymore," she told Glamour. "I thought that people would see me as sick and not see me as me."
Working with a therapist helped Sigler to realize that she needed to ask her friends and family for help and that keeping her illness a secret was only hurting her. She publicly revealed her MS diagnosis for the first time in a January 2016 interview with People magazine. She and baseball player Cutter Dykstra got married that same month, and Sigler later told WebMD she had wanted to make the announcement "around a time of celebration." The couple now have two sons: Beau Kyle Dykstra, 8, and Jack Adam Dykstra, 3.
With her medical condition finally out in the open, Sigler felt relieved. "I feel physically better because I don't have this stress and this fear that followed me around everywhere," she told WebMD.
Sigler has relapse-remitting MS.
Speaking to Glamour, Sigler explained that she has relapse-remitting MS (RRMS). According to the National MS Society, RRMS is characterized by "an attack of new or increasing neurologic symptoms," also known as relapses, "followed by periods of complete or partial recovery." She told WebMD that she's tried "every alternative treatment" possible over the years, including different types of diets and invasive therapies. Now, when treating her symptoms, Sigler takes the medication Tecfidera twice a day.
Sigler's MS causes her pain, which is worse on some days than others. "I'll have moments where my sciatica [pain that runs along the legs or back] gets really bad at the end of the day or I'm a little extra stiff today or whatnot, but I can say that I've learned to sort of be uncomfortable," she explained to Glamour.
The actor also has physical limitations because of the disease. She noted to the magazine that the most difficult challenge for her is running, which she hasn't been able to do for over 10 years. Whenever she tries to run, Sigler explained, her symptoms worsen.
"I start to stiffen up," she said. "My brain can't work quickly enough with my legs. I have a weakness in my right side, so balance, coordination."
Still, she doesn't let her MS hold her back.
Although living with the disease has been difficult, Sigler told People in 2020 that she's realized all "the positive things it's brought to [her]" and "who it has made [her] today."
"Do I still wish I didn't have MS? Sure," she said. "But it's like my thing in this lifetime, maybe. And I am dealing with it the best I can. I'm still independent."
Despite the fact that MS may slow her down physically, she has come to terms with the disease and embraces the reality of it in her own way.
"But I've figured out in the 18 years living with it how best to function and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything in life because of it," she added.
RELATED: If You Notice This With Your Hands, It Could Be an Early Sign of MS.
