Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean has shared a special message about her battle with multiple sclerosis on World MS Day.
“I desired to, you recognize, let you recognize that MS really doesn’t present itself in numerous ways,” Dean said in a robust video posted to Twitter on Tuesday.
“I call it the ‘invisible illness,’ the ‘My, you look so well’ disease because we could be looking wonderful, I got my hair and makeup done, but within us, our body is attacking its central nervous system, the brain and the spine,” she continued.
Dean was diagnosed with the neurological disease in 2005.
She revealed that, on this World MS Day, she has actually been feeling a flare-up of symptoms as of late.
“Yesterday, I felt almost like a sunburn sensation behind my neck. I felt it overnight last night. I didn’t sleep well, and I’m feeling it again today,” Dean explained.
“So although we glance okay on the surface, I’ve got my hair and my makeup done, I’m smiling on ‘Fox and Friends,’ inside could be quite a challenge and what it appears like.”
She admitted that, at times, it could actually be hard to placed on a completely satisfied face when you’ll be able to be feeling so horribly otherwise resulting from the disease.
Dean also gave a shout-out to her fellow “MS warriors” who proceed to maintain pushing on despite all of it.
“Together, I feel we’re stronger and I feel even when we don’t have a cure for this, there may be actually the hope that we will stop the progression all together, which can be wonderful,” Dean said within the clip.
“There are recent therapies on the market, there are promising things on the horizon, and that’s why I’m saying today that I’m still hopeful — although I don’t feel great — and that it’s necessary to boost awareness, and I’ll proceed to achieve this.”
The Post has reached out to Dean for further comment.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease that affects the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves — all of which make up one’s central nervous system, in accordance with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
It causes damage to the myelin sheath, which is a coating that protects your nerve cells, in accordance with Mount Sinai. Consequently of that damage, it could actually decelerate and even stop nerve signals.
The reason for MS is currently unknown, and there isn’t a cure as of without delay, in accordance with the hospital, but there are treatments that may help to decelerate the progression of the disease.
Some symptoms include a lack of balance, muscle spams, and a tingling feeling in an individual’s legs and arms, amongst others — but it could actually be different for everybody.
Dean was diagnosed nearly twenty years ago after she had been feeling an “overwhelming fatigue, numbness in her thighs, and lack of sensation within the soles of her feet,” in accordance with Brain & Life.
At first, she thought it was resulting from her demanding and busy work schedule as a journalist, however the symptoms wouldn’t go away, so she went to the doctor, who referred her to a neurologist.
She was ultimately diagnosed with MS.
“I wanted to seek out a neurologist with an intensive knowledge of the disease and a superb bedside manner, who could offer me reassurance and hope,” Dean told the outlet on the time.
“I also began reading about other people [in the public eye] who had been diagnosed with MS, similar to Montel Williams, Teri Garr, Richard Cohen [Meredith Vieira’s husband] and others. It helped me to place faces to the illness and to listen to about individuals who weren’t only surviving but in addition thriving.”
In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Dean also gave an update about how she was feeling,
“And here’s my update: went to doc’s yesterday,” she wrote. “Recent MRI’s shall be done, a course of steroids to assist with pain and more tests to see why I’m having a flare up. Feeling a bit higher today. Now we have to maintain moving. Thanks for all of the love and prayers, everyone. 🧡.”
