Michael Klim opens up about the ‘confronting’ nature of his ongoing health battle

Olympic swimming legend Michael Klim has offered a candid admission regarding his ongoing battle against Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), admitting that it has been “pretty tough”.

According to the Brain Foundation, CIDP “is a neurological disorder that results in slowly progressive weakness and loss of feeling in the legs and arms”.

Klim, who has been open about his journey with the rare autoimmune disorder, shared details of the toll CIPD has taken on him with star Drew Barrymore during Wanderlust’s True North event in Sydney on Friday, August 2.

“I had a lot of neural symptoms early on – most people would get cold feet at nighttime or you’d get a tingling on your quad – but I started getting these random feelings in my legs and they started progressing and getting worse,” he explained, as per the Daily Mail.

“Towards the end, my legs would give way on me when I was walking back. All my other aches and pains started popping up even more, affecting my everyday lifestyle from my ankle to my back.

“I just almost got tipped over the edge, and within six months, I could not walk. I lost all functionality from the knees down, my muscles were literally just disappearing.

“As many races as I wanted to do, nothing was making them go and activating those muscles.”

In addition to the physical toll, Klim revealed that his condition has been “really confronting mentally”.

“I could look down and see these sticks hanging off my body, which for someone that used to pride myself on my physical ability, that was taken away within six months,” he said.

Fortunately, Klim has achieved greater mobility over the last couple of years with rehabilitation and regular blood plasma treatments.

“The last two years have been OK, but the first two were pretty tough,” he revealed.

The former Olympian took to his blog in July 2022, where he announced his diagnosis while revealing that he had learnt of his condition after “dealing with chronic ankle problems and degenerative back issues for quite some time”.

He made the admission in an effort to raise awareness for those impacted by the condition.

“Over two years ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) which is a neurological disorder condition that targets your body’s nerves, especially the areas of the arms, hands, legs, and feet,” he revealed at the time.

“Symptoms aren’t the same for everyone but in my case, it has affected my legs and feet.”