“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alum Emma Caulfield Ford shares update on MS journey: 'I'm very, very fortunate'

"I'm stable — and I've made it a huge priority to do things so I stay that way," the actress said.

Emma Caulfield Ford is taking life with multiple sclerosis one day at a time.

In a candid new PEOPLE interview, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress shared an update on her health and talked about going public with her MS diagnosis in 2022, after keeping it quiet for more than a decade.

Thus far, Caulfield Ford's symptoms have been extremely mild, and she doesn't take medication. Though she has acute sensitivity to heat and stress, she has yet to experience some of the more severe symptoms of MS, such as flare-ups, fatigue, and muscle weakness. A series of recent MRIs showed no active lesions, a sign that her MS has not progressed.

"I'm very, very fortunate," Caulfield Ford, 50, told PEOPLE. "But I'm also aware that, with MS, this could all change tomorrow. I'm stable — and I've made it a huge priority to do things so I stay that way."

MS is a chronic autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system; it affects an estimated 1 million Americans. Caulfield Ford received her diagnosis in 2010, after waking up one morning to find the left side of her face had gone numb. She originally chalked it up to a pinched nerve or a result of stress and work pressure, but her acupuncturist floated the possibility of Bell's palsy. That led her to get an MRI, which resulted in her diagnosis of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

Because her symptoms went away after a few weeks, Caulfield Ford decided to keep her diagnosis secret, even from her family. Only her husband knew. "I was like, 'Oh my God, what's going to happen? What am I going to do?'" she recalled. "So I told no one, not even my sister. There are just too many reasons people don't hire you as it is. I didn't need to give them any other excuse."

But things came to a head when Caulfield Ford was working on WandaVision in 2020 on an extremely hot August day. "We were all in a sort of hot box," she recalled. "I started feeling dizzy and faint. I was like, 'My body can't take this.' I was putting myself under too much physical duress, being out in the heat and breathing the bad air."

This incident, which she resolved by cooling herself down with ice packs, made her realize that she had to stop keeping her MS a secret. "I was like, 'I can't be afraid anymore. I have to tell the truth. It's not good for my health,'" she said.

Caulfield Ford publicly disclosed her diagnosis via Vanity Fair in October 2022, having already told colleagues and family. Now that it's out there, she wants to continue sharing her journey and educating others about MS. "It's one of the reasons I decided to go public," she said, "because if someone can recognize themselves or gain some inspiration from my experience, that's wonderful."

Besides a recent sensitivity to cacophonous noise, her symptoms have not accelerated, though she told PEOPLE that she often thinks about her disease. "I'm like, 'My back's a little sore today. Is that MS or is that because you turned 50?' And I don't know," she said. "I feel quite good, and that's good news."

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• Selma Blair discusses living with undiagnosed MS for 40 years: 'If you're a girl, you're called crazy'

• Christina Applegate has Married… With Children reunion in first public appearance since MS diagnosis

• Christina Applegate slams commenter who said 'plastic surgeon' changed her body, not MS: 'I laughed'

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.