- Michael Klim opens up about his health battle
- The great swimmer says he was “not a very nice person to be around”
- He has recovered and is enjoying his new life.
Michael Klim admitted he was “not a very nice person” at the start of his health scare as the Australian swimming legend told how he has recovered from his shock diagnosis.
The 47-year-old Olympic champion was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), in 2020 but did not go public about his health battle until 2022.
Klim has spoken openly about the difficult four-year period that followed, during which his health deteriorated to the point where he was unable to walk and was bedridden.
CIDP causes the body to attack its own tissue (the myelin sheaths that insulate and protect nerves), causing weakness and numbness in the arms and legs.
The 47-year-old father of two daughters and a son told the Betoota Advocate podcast how the life-changing diagnosis left him a shadow of his former self and the ripple effect it had on his loved ones.
“I got to a point where I couldn’t hide it: I was wobbly and needed a cane, I looked different, I had put on a lot of weight and my treatment was taking its toll on me,” she said of her decision to go public in 2022.
‘COVID-19 was a blessing but also a curse at the same time because I used it to hide from people. But then I had to integrate myself back in and I was in a pretty bad place mentally but I managed to get out of it, I sought help and a lot of things that I love to do like working out, being outdoors and surfing were taken away from me so I had to rebuild my lifestyle and get to a stage of acceptance where I was like, “Okay, this is the new normal, you can still do a lot of things,” because I couldn’t keep regretting this life that I had left behind.
“It was tough, tough for everyone around me, not just me. I wasn’t a very nice person during that period.
‘I started having symptoms about five years ago; if you have a little tingling in your feet or quads, or even cold feet, or something like that, you should get it checked out early, because a lot of these problems can be addressed and stopped very quickly if caught early.
Michael Klim opens up about how he dealt with his shocking health diagnosis
The Australian swimming legend was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease in 2020
“In my case, the disease reduced very quickly. Within six months I lost the ability to walk and lost all my muscles from my knees down.”
Klim said the CIPD diagnosis was harder to accept than when she retired from swimming in 2012.
“It was a tougher test than quitting swimming and going back to real life,” he said. “This was a different challenge where I didn’t have my physique or energy to fall back on.”
“I had to create a new person. I’m still in my 40s and I hope to be around for a while. I still need to be a present father, a provider, all that kind of stuff, but there was a period where I wasn’t any of that.”
Klim, who lives in Bali with his partner Michelle Owen, can now walk with the aid of a cane.
He is undergoing rehabilitation including plasma treatment, which has helped him gain mobility by reducing inflammation and restoring nerve damage.
She said she was “not a very nice person” when she was first coming to terms with her diagnosis.
Swimmer Klim is perhaps best known for his great triumph at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, where he took gold for Australia.
In the 4x200m freestyle relay, Klim sent the crowd into a frenzy when he broke the world record in the first leg of the race, setting his team up for victory.
Along with Ian Thorpe, Chris Fydler and Ashley Callus, Klim took home the gold medal, while the previously undefeated Americans took silver.