Brooke Shields, 58, Reveals Terrifying Health Scare: ‘What Death Must Be Like’
Brooke Shields recounted having a seizure in September.
The event was triggered by over-hydration.
The actress drank a ton of water in preparation for her one-woman show, Previously Owned.
Amidst promoting her documentary, Pretty Baby, maintaining her modeling empire with an iconic SKIMS ad, and recording a podcast, Brooke Shields headlined a one-woman show in September called Previously Owned. The cabaret act required more singing “than I’ve ever sung in my life,” she told Glamour, so to prepare, she drank a ton of water. And that seemingly healthy precaution landed her in the hospital, hours before a show: She had a “full-blown” seizure.
In recounting the event to Glamour, the 58-year-old provided context. “I drank all this water. I leave my house,” she said. Then people began giving her concerned looks. “I walked to the corner—no reason at all. I’m like, ‘Why am I out here?’” she said. She turned around and entered a restaurant. “I go in, two women come up to me; I don’t know them. Everything starts to go black,” she recalled. “Then my hands drop to my side and I go headfirst into the wall.”
Doctors later told Shields she had a grand mal seizure, which is now referred to as a tonic-clonic seizure, per John Hopkins Medicine. The name indicates that there is body stiffening (tonic activity) and jerking or twitching (clonic activity). Shields said she was also “frothing at the mouth, totally blue, trying to swallow my tongue,” all of which are common characteristics of tonic-clonics, per John Hopkins. “The next thing I remember, I’m being loaded into an ambulance. I have oxygen on,” she said.
(Oh, and Bradley Cooper was there, holding her hand. Long story short, at the time, he was the closest next of kin available. “I didn’t have a sense of humor,” Shields recalled. “I couldn’t really get any words out. But I thought to myself, this is what death must be like.”)
After Shields was poked and prodded, and even put into the ICU, she learned that the culprit of her seizure was low sodium. “I had had too much water. I flooded my system, and I drowned myself,” she said. “And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or your body, you can have a seizure.”
This is medically known as hyponatremia, per Cleveland Clinic, a condition characterized by lower-than-normal blood sodium levels. Seizures are among its most serious symptoms, which can escalate into a coma. Other symptoms include confusion (which Shields experienced), muscle cramps or weakness, nausea, lethargy, and headache. Research shows that hyponatremia becomes increasingly common and risky with age.
Treatment for the condition varies but usually includes limiting water intake, adjusting medications, and increasing salt intake, per Cleveland Clinic, the latter of which was the case for Shields. Doctors prescribed her some extra salty snacks, she said: “They were just like, ‘Eat potato chips every day.’”
When it comes to treatment plans, it certainly could be worse. We’re glad she’s feeling better.
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