Canadian singer Celine Dion has again postponed this Thursday, December 8, the start of the European dates of her tour, scheduled for February.
In a video of almost five minutes posted on Instagram, in French and in English, Céline Dion, visibly very moved, recounts having “health problems for a long time”. ” Recently I was diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder called “stiff-person syndrome”. (stiff person syndrome)”, details the Quebec singer.
This disorder, which is characterized in particular by progressive muscular rigidity (see box), causes Celine Dion to have difficulty walking and prevents her from ” use (one’s) vocal cords as she would like. ” We don’t yet know everything about this rare disease, but we now know that it is the cause of the muscle spasms I suffer from “, she continues.
The singer had already mentioned these spasms in the spring, during the previous postponement of her European tour. She then claimed to feel a little better “even if he” still happened to have spasms “.
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Expected at the end of February in the Czech Republic for the European part of her Courage World Tour, Celine Dion again preferred to postpone her reunion with the Old Continent. “ It saddens me enormously to have to tell you today that I will not be ready to start my tour in Europe again in February. “, she regrets, saying that she has by her side” an excellent team of doctors “.
Parisian dates maintained
While some 2023 concerts are rescheduled for 2024, others are canceled. These include her coming to the Vieilles Charrues festival in Brittany, where she was expected on July 13, after the first two cancellations.
” Celine Dion’s health problem leads us to a cancellation and not a postponement that we had considered for the summer of 2024 “, confirms to AFP the director of the festival, Jérôme Trehorel, who plans to reimburse 55,000 tickets. According to him, the passage of the star in 2024 to the Plows is not possible from the point of view of its turners because of the risk weighing on the events planned during the summer of 2024, due to the holding of the Olympic Games in Paris. On the other hand, all the concerts of the singer scheduled from August 26 to October 4, 2023, including the six planned at La Défense Arena (near Paris) in September, are maintained.
Celine Dion had given the first 52 shows of the tour before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The superstar then announced that she was canceling the North American leg of this tour due to her health problems.
Stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological pathology
Stiff-Person Syndrome (SPR) or Stiff-Person Syndrome, from which Canadian star Celine Dion suffers, is a rare neurological condition characterized by progressive muscle stiffness and repeated episodes of painful muscle spasms.
Muscle stiffness often fluctuates, i.e. it gets worse then better, and usually occurs at the same time as muscle spasms. These spasms can occur randomly or be triggered by a variety of different events, including sudden noise or light physical contact. If left untreated, RPS can potentially progress to difficulty walking and significantly impact a person’s ability to perform routine daily tasks.
The first cases were documented in 1956. Originally described as stiff-man syndrome, the name has been changed, as the disorder can affect people of any age and both sexes. In fact, most people with the disease are women. It is an extremely rare disease. According to the American organization NORD, which aims to provide support for people with rare diseases, the incidence is around 1 person in a million.
Treatment aims to relieve the specific symptoms that occur in each individual, which often requires non-drug approaches: stretching, acupuncture, massage, etc. Certain medications can also be used to treat muscle stiffness and episodic spasms.
(With AFP)