Niamh Shackleton
Adam Devine has recalled receiving a devastating diagnosis shortly before the birth of his son.
Devine, best known for starring in Pitch Perfect and Modern Family, was told he had a rare neurological condition that limits a person's life.
Known as Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), the rare illness has been made more aware of in recent years in light of Céline Dion's diagnosis.
She was told she had the life-limiting condition in August 2022.
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According to Cleveland Clinic, SPS is 'a rare, chronic condition that causes muscle stiffness and painful muscle spasms'.
Symptoms vary from person to person and there's no cure for the condition, which is thought to only affect one or two people per million, says John Hopkins Medicine.
Discussing the moment he was told he had SPS, Devine said in a new episode of the In Depth With Graham Bensinger podcast: "I was having spasms all over, and I still kind of do.
"They don’t really know. For a while, they told me I was dying. Literally within this last year, they told me that.
"They told me I have this disease call Stiff Person Syndrome and that's when your muscles get so tight that you can then no longer walk, you can no longer move, then your heart will stop beating because your heart is a muscle and it gets too tight to beat."
Devine went on to say that the average life expectancy of someone with SPS is six years, and he was told this just a month before his son, Beau, was born.
The actor and comedian was then concerned that his little boy would 'only know a crippled father' and that he would die when his son was only six years old.
However, Devine was urged to see an SPS specialist, who assured the Isn't It Romantic star that he didn't have the condition.
Instead, he was told that his muscle-related issues he was having stemmed from a childhood accident he had at the age of 11.
Sharing what the doctor told him, Devine said: "He’s like, ‘This is from your accident when you were a child.The spasms are a little unexplainable, but it could just be [that] you got so tight that your body doesn’t know what to do with it so you’re misfiring a little bit.'"
When Devine was a boy, he was hit by a 42-ton cement truck when crossing the street.
He went on to need numerous surgeries as a result of the accident and he was left wheelchair-bound for some time.
Fortunately Devine went on to make a full recovery and was able to walk again, but the 41-year-old still faces ongoing complications from the ordeal.