It’s agony, says the Oscar winner, who has been battling fibromyalgia since he was 15
I want to help raise awareness of a disease that affects 12 million American women, the singer tweeted
Fibromyalgia is an excruciating disease with constant muscle and joint pain, chronic fatigue and brain fog. It literally drains physical and mental strength, leads to depression and social isolation.
The great Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman suffers from this rheumatic disease. Today he is 85 years old, and the unrelenting and maddening ailments have plagued him for 15 years.
Fibromyalgia can be hereditary, caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, by influenza and pneumonia,
from the bacteria salmonella, shigella and other microbes causing infections of the digestive system. It can also arise from trauma, as in Freeman’s case.
In August 2008, the actor with the iconic sexy voice was involved in a serious car accident on the way to his ranch in Mississippi. At 11:30 p.m. on his way back from dinner at a golf club, he lost control, his Nissan left the road and overturned several times. Parts of it are scattered far and wide, and the rescuers use hydraulic shears to remove the actor and his companion – a certain Demaris Meyer.
Freeman is apparently fine, conscious, and jokes with onlookers filming, “Enough avanta!”.
However, according to the doctors, his condition is very serious – his left arm and elbow are badly broken, he has a severe shoulder injury. The aging Freeman and his injured companion were airlifted to a hospital in Memphis. He spends four and a half hours on the operating table. Surgeons have to sew up torn nerves and
to set broken bones
The treatment is long and despite the efforts of the doctors, the actor can no longer use his left hand. His fingers are immobile to this day due to irreversible nerve damage. He is often seen wearing a compression glove against blood clotting in the affected limb due to lack of movement. There are even rumors that the hand was cut off and he is hiding it.
Over time, he began to suffer from fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) – a condition of constant pain in people who have experienced physical or emotional trauma. It is thought to occur due to a chemical imbalance in the brain where the nerves begin to perceive normal pain sensations as too intense.
Many studies prove that hormonal disturbances provoked by powerful long-term stress can trigger fibromyalgia. And the Hollywood celebrity does not lack stress. The media and artistic circles hyped that Demaris Meyer, 48 at the time, was his lover, for which Freeman divorced Myrna, the woman he had been with for 24 years. Meyer was also injured in the crash, breaking her left wrist and right shoulder blade , has a torn labrum in the shoulder joint, is going through surgery.
A few months later, the lady filed a lawsuit against the actor,
accusing him of careless driving. Claims that at the dinner at the golf club he drank heavily and then drove her Nissan.
He is seeking $75,000 in damages. Demaris accuses the actor of not refuting allegations of an extramarital affair. She swears they met that night at the party and he invited her to stay over because she lived far away. A lawyer for Freeman announced that he has been divorced since 2007, with which Meyer had nothing to do. The separation was requested by his wife Myrna because of numerous infidelities. Morgan has no children with her, but has three and one adopted from previous relationships.
The Black star hastily settled out of court with Demaris Meyer. The amount he paid remains secret, but whatever it was, it hardly broke the bank. He accumulated $ 250 million from over 100 films, among them the masterpiece “The Shawshank Redemption”, the great western “Unforgivable”, the film about Mandela “Invincible”, the films “Street Fighter”, “Driving Miss Daisy”, with which he became the subject of clues about the crash.
A favorite of director Clint Eastwood, he won an Oscar for supporting actor in his film Millionaire Girl (2005). He won 5 more nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy, etc. He is still shooting and his latest film, A Good Man, is due out in March. But the disease changed his life, and the stressors did not stop. In 2018, eight women accused him of sexual harassment and lewd remarks. “I’m devastated. 80 years of life will be destroyed in the blink of an eye”, he commented then and rejected the accusations, but apologized just in case.
The incident further shook his psyche and health, but Freeman apparently possesses amazing endurance, as he himself admits: “My situation has not improved at all, I am subjected to constant torture.” It hurts when he walks, when he sits, when he gets up from the couch, when he trips on the lawn. “It’s more than pain, it’s agony,” he says.
But where does it get its energy from? “When you smoke enough marijuana, everything falls into place,” the actor replies. He has been on weed for years and claims that only it saves him, keeps him on his feet and relieves the pain.
Freeman is a prominent campaigner for the legalization of marijuana.
already authorized for medical and other purposes in 21 US states.
The cause of fibromyalgia is still a mystery, but it is believed to be due to a change in the central perception of pain. Doctors describe the symptoms as burning pains all over the body that are aggravated by the touch of even the lightest blanket or garment and sometimes feel like a hammer blow. There is no treatment for it, but therapy with sedatives, hypnotics, antidepressants and muscle relaxants is used to relieve symptoms.
More than 4% of the world’s population suffer from the disease. The singer
Sinead O’Connor interrupted her career several times because of the painful syndrome
Lady Gaga also suffers from it. She sometimes cancels concerts because of the pain and rescues herself with a sauna, body heat and ice showers to soothe muscles.
“I want to help raise awareness of the disease and connect people who suffer from it,” Gaga recently tweeted. An estimated 12 million American women suffer from fibromyalgia.
