Buffy’s Emma Caulfield Offers an Update on Her Battle With Multiple Sclerosis
After revealing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in October 2022, Buffy the Vampire Slayer vet Emma Caulfield is offering an update on her health.
Caulfield (who is now going by Emma Caulfield Ford, following her 2017 marriage to actor Mark Leslie Ford) tells People that her symptoms remain mild. She has not suffered from fatigue or muscle weakness, and she has not needed medication.
“I’m very, very fortunate,” she says. “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.” That includes avoiding direct sunlight and committing to a daily workout routine.
She tells People that she’s recently developed a sensitivity to cacophonous noise, which may be related to her diagnosis, but otherwise feels “quite good, and that’s good news.”
Caulfield announced her diagnosis in a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair after secretly battling the disorder for more than a decade. It all began in 2010 when she woke up one morning to find the left side of her face had gone numb. After an MRI and neurological exams, an official MS diagnosis soon followed.
The actress told Vanity Fair that she initially hid her condition because she “didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to not hire me.” Caulfield, whose father also has MS, shared that she decided to ultimately go public with her diagnosis because she was “so tired of not being honest.”
Caulfield recently reprised her role as Anya on Audible’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Audiobook offshoot Slayers, and will next be seen in Disney+’s WandaVision spinoff Agatha: Darkhold Diaries (due out in late 2024).
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