Newlywed Jamie Lynn Sigler has gone public with a secret she’s kept for 15 years now – she has multiple sclerosis (MS).
Sigler, who married Cutter Dykstra over the weekend, said she was diagnosed with MS when she was 20 years old.
In an interview with People, Sigler, 34, admits she had a hard time coming to terms with her diagnosis, even after all of this time. "I wasn't ready until now," she said about going public with it. "You'd think that after all these years, somebody would be settled with something like this, but it's still hard to accept."
She said she’s taken her share of medications over the years, but the for the last six years her symptoms have been manageable by taking Tecfidera.
"It takes a fighting attitude to deal with all this,” she said. “This disease can absolutely take over your life if you let it."
Now that she’s moving on with her life with a new marriage, she said “it's a new me” and “I don't want to hold a secret where it feels like I have something to be ashamed of or have something to hide.”
Sigler and Dykstra, 26, share a 2-year-old son named Beau.