Christine Schwab

It started with aching feet. Something every woman occasionally gets, especially if she favors 3-inch heels – which fashion and style expert Christine Schwab did.

It was September 1990 and Christine, then a fashion reporter for Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, was in Manhattan prepping for a special feature: three real-women makeovers. She needed to get her throbbing feet out of her too-narrow Jimmy Choo heels, so the 43-year-old ducked into a store and bought a pair of sneakers. Better. But she still couldn’t walk very far. And she was oh-so-tired.

Thank goodness for her assistants, who helped pull the segment together. Little did Christine know she was in the midst of her own physical transformation.

She was – and still is – a beautiful blonde with Hollywood ties. In addition to her work on Regis, she also did special assignments for Entertainment Tonight on style and fashion – from the Oscars to where celebrities shop for the latest trends.

As the wife of Shelly Schwab, then the president of television distribution at Universal Studios, even her personal life revolved around the red carpet. She hobnobbed with celebrities and television and film executives at her husband’s business events, looking stunning, of course, in top designer clothes.

So when those nagging pains in the fall of 1990 led to a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, or RA, a few months later, Christine was shattered. As she reveals in her recently published memoir, Take Me Home From the Oscars: Arthritis, Television, Fashion, and Me, 2011, Skyhorse Publishing Inc., she feared that if word got out, her career in an industry that valued youth and appearance would be over.

At First, Denial

Before Christine’s diagnosis, as the pain in her feet worsened, she was convinced she had tendinitis. But the orthopaedic specialist she saw ruled it out. He referred her to a rheumatologist, but Christine’s blood tested negative for inflammatory markers characteristic of RA.

As the pain traveled up to her lower legs and knees, she saw a second rheumatologist who also tested her blood. The second round came back negative, too, but based on the physical exam, she was diagnosed with RA.

She broke down crying in the doctor’s office. “My husband was overjoyed because I didn’t have a life-threatening illness,” she recalls. “The doctor was delighted because he could put me in a category. All I could think about was being crippled. It was one of the most devastating days of my life.”

Nicknamed “Sparkle Plenty” as a child by her two half sisters because she always looked on the bright side, Christine decided that if she pretended she was fine, then maybe she would be. “I kept saying, ‘No, it has to be a tendon.’ I didn’t want to deal with the diagnosis. I had just married this wonderful, incredible dream man in April and my career was going gung-ho,” she says. 

She kept her disease a secret from everyone but her family and closest friends – not always an easy task, partly due to her symptoms and to side effects from the medications she took.

They offered relief but came with a price – thinning hair from one disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug, or DMARD, severe lung problems from another. Prednisone kept her up at night and made her edgy all day – and hungry, too. She quickly ballooned from a size 6 to a size 10.

Drawing on her experience as a fashion and style reporter – she’d built a decades-long career reporting on style and fashion for radio and TV – Christine improvised. She wore looser clothes to hide her increasing girth and changed her hairstyle to downplay her round face. When a stylist commented on her new sneaker wardrobe, Christine quipped that they were the latest craze. When a producer associated her round face with steroid use, Christine said she was taking steroids to fight a lung infection. To hide her swollen hands, she wore lacy, fingerless gloves to industry galas.

Sometimes her efforts failed. On March 27, 1995 – Oscar night – the pain in Christine’s feet was so debilitating that she and her husband left Hollywood’s Shrine Auditorium, where the awards show was being held, as movie stars and industry leaders were entering.

A Turning Point

What kept Christine going? Hope.

“My doctor kept telling me, ‘We have to keep you stable because so many new drugs are in the pipeline,’” says Christine.

In January 1997, she was accepted into a double-blinded, clinical trial at University of California, Los Angeles, for a new biologic. One big caveat: During the trial, all other medicines would be off-limits. For nine months she gave herself twice-monthly injections, not knowing if she was receiving placebo, a half-strength dosage of the drug or a full-strength dose. For six months, with her symptoms at bay, she thrived. Then seemingly overnight, her pain returned with a vengeance, her knuckles enlarged, her fingers slanted and her feet blew up. For the final three months of the trial, she cut back on work.

That September, when the study ended, she learned she’d been taking placebo; her good health had been a temporary response to all the other medicines leaving her body. But there was a bright spot: She was now eligible to receive that biologic – Enbrel, generic name etanercept – before FDA approval. In the fall of 1997, after just two injections, her symptoms eased, and she has been in remission ever since.

“For me the biologic has been a miracle,” she says. “I now have total control over my life.” Just before starting it, she had consulted a hand surgeon to see whether he could fix her damaged hands. “Sometimes, when you feel your life is spinning out of control, you have to grab onto something,” she says. But when the biologic stopped further damage, Christine changed her mind. “My hands aren’t terrible and the results from surgery would be so minimal I didn’t feel it would be worth the risk,” she says.

Reclaiming Her Life

Making peace with her hands hasn’t been the only about-face in Christine’s life. She is back down to a size 6. She has tossed all her heels – and that’s OK with her. The only reminder of the steroids she once took: osteoporosis, for which she takes a bone-building drug. That, along with extra calcium, vitamin D and strength training, have helped her regain some bone.

In addition to strength training, Christine takes Pilates once a week and is serious about cardio, especially riding on the recumbent bike and walking. She’ll use the treadmill if she must, but when she’s home in Beverly Hills, she prefers to power walk around town for at least 45 minutes every morning with her husband. And she always treats herself afterward.

“I believe in reward! After a power walk I think, ‘OK, I did a great thing for my body and I deserve a reward,’” Christine says. “But you have to reward your body with good things to make you stay healthy. I love breakfast or coffee after a walk.”

Partly because she is in remission and partly because of a writing class she took – which helped her shape her book – Christine, now 64, is no longer in hiding. The act of writing her story helped her come to terms with her disease. Now, instead of focusing on her reporting career, she wants to focus on changing the way most people think about arthritis.

“To this day it is associated with being old and crippled. We just have to get rid of that perception,” she says. “It’s a whole different disease than when our parents had arthritis because there are so many good drugs out there, and also because people are exercising and eating healthier.”

Whereas once she silently supported arthritis research by writing checks at fundraisers, she is now ready to “wrap the arthritis flag around me” and use her Hollywood connections to shine a spotlight on arthritis research.

“People will stand up and say, ‘I have cancer,’ or ‘I am an alcoholic,’ and it’s a badge of courage. But major celebrities don’t come forward for arthritis. I want to change that. My whole world is glamour, and it’s time to make arthritis more glamorous.”

Coming Out of Hiding – In Style 

Looking your best when your rheumatoid arthritis flares is a no-fail moral booster, says style expert Christine Schwab, who offers these tips:

Slim a moon face. Grow your hair chin-length or longer. “The more hair you have, the more you can camouflage a puffy face and jaw line,” says Christine. Use a powder bronzer on your cheeks instead of a blush. It contours rather than draws attention.

Think angles. A shirt with an angled collar or earrings draw attention away from a round face.

Conceal puffy knees. Wear dark-colored loose pants or skirts that hit below the knee. And choose hose and shoes in the same shade.

Wear fingerless gloves – whether they’re made of lace, cotton or cashmere – to cover swollen fingers and knuckles. “They’re very chic,“ says Christine.

Forget about heels. You can’t wear them if your feet hurt. Instead, wear soft ballet-style flats when you dress up and add a pad for extra support. “I went to hundreds of black ties in flat, bendable shoes,” says Christine. For everyday wear, stick to classic loafers or low-heeled boots.