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Venus Williams' Battle With Sjogren's Syndrome: Inside Her Autoimmune Disease Diagnosis

Tennis legend Venus Williams was diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome in 2011, and she gave fans an update about how she's handled living with the condition during a September 2024 appearance on Good Morning America.

What Is Sjogren's Syndrome?

It is a chronic autoimmune disease that "happens when your immune system damages the glands that produce and control moisture in your body," the Cleveland Clinic's website explained. It added, that the "most common symptom is chronic, unusual dryness in your eyes and mouth."

When Was Venus Williams Diagnosed With Sjogren's Syndrome?

The five-time Wimbledon champ announced she had been diagnosed with the disease after its effects forced her with withdraw from the U.S. Open in 2011.

"I think I've had issues with Sjogren's for a while. It just wasn't diagnosed. The good news for me is now I know what's happening," Venus revealed to Good Morning America on September 1, 2011.

"I had trouble with stamina," she explained, adding that her symptoms became worse in the summer leading up to the grand slam event.

"I had swelling and numbness and fatigue, which was really debilitating. I just didn't have any energy," she continued. "And it's not that you don't have energy. You just feel beat up."

Venus was thankful she was finally diagnosed with the autoimmune disease so she could start learning how to live with it.

"It's a huge relief because as an athlete everything is physical for me — everything is being fit and being in shape," she said. "I think the best thing that could have happened for me this summer was to feel worse so I could feel better."

Julian Finney/Getty Images How Did Venus Williams Treat Living With Sjogren's Syndrome?

While there's no cure for the syndrome, there are treatments and medication so that patients can live a normal life.

"In the beginning, I just had to wait to get better," Venus told Prevention in 2019. "One of the medications I had took six months to set in. There was another that took one to three months. It was kind of a waiting game until you can go back to what you had been doing."

"Before I was on medication, the quality of my life wasn't as good because I was extremely uncomfortable. Just being alive was very uncomfortable. I was exhausted to the point that I was just always uncomfortable or in pain," she continued.

Along with medical treatment, Venus made lifestyle changes including eating a vegan diet, which she maintains today.

Venus Williams Had to Overcome the 'Fear' of Living With Sjogren's Syndrome

During a September 9, 2024, appearance on Good Morning America to promote her new lifestyle book, Strive: 8 Steps To Find Your Awesome, Venus opened up about life with Sjogren's Syndrome.

As for her 2011 diagnosis, "It was a whole other thing for me, because I spent my whole entire life just pushing myself and 'if you'll work hard enough, you'll get what you want.' Guess what, all that's out the window," the four-time Australian Open champ revealed.

"So, I had to overcome fear, 'cause there's so much fear when you don't know what you can achieve and it's out of your control. And how do you handle fear, how do you reframe it?" she continued. "How do you think about what you can achieve, but not what you can't? Because there were a lot of things I couldn't do — and not focusing on that and what I could contribute that day."

"It wasn't always easy. Sometimes it was a day-by-day thing of reminding myself that every day. I think it made me stronger and better and opened new ways of thinking for me," Venus added. "So, it's kind of like, we don't ask for less challenges, we ask for more skills."

Venus Williams Opens Up About Having Sjögren's Syndrome – The Disease That's More Likely To Affect Women

Venus Williams is opening up about her experience with Sjögren's syndrome after being diagnosed over a decade ago.

As an athlete, Williams is used to putting her body to work on and off the court, but the four-time gold Olympic medalist reveals that she dealt with a different kind of endurance while learning how to manage the syndrome.

She told Harper's Bazaar, "I had all kinds of symptoms, but that was very challenging as an athlete. When you crash, you go so hard that you can't get up, literally.

Source: Courtesy of / Madison Lane

"But I still got up, because I had to," she said, as the disease is known to bring prolonged fatigue. "Lying in bed is not fun. There is no substitute for being well. I had to change my pace."

Williams started to experience symptoms of the disease as early as 2004. While she had to publicly face other tennis athletes on the court, she was privately battling symptoms of exhaustion. After several trips to the doctors and multiple misdiagnosis Williams finally got an answer to her problems in 2011.

"It took seven years before I was diagnosed," she said before later adding, "I hadn't felt myself for a while." It was a relief to know what was going on with her body, "But at the same time, it was hard to accept. I'm used to doing whatever I want, working hard and staying fit. To realize that it's not something you can work through, that this is your life now…that was hard."

Source: PrathanChorruangsak / Getty

But Williams decided not to let the disease discourage her and instead she chose to make the best of it with a major pivot in her diet. A move she says has been extremely beneficial. The 44-year-old became vegan in order to help regenerate her body with the things the disease was robbing her of. "Knowing how important a role my diet plays keeps me on track," she told Women's Health in 2020.

That same year, Williams became so passionate about foods and exploring how it can benefit your body that she went on to co-found a plant-based protein powder company called Happy Viking. The powder can be used in shakes and smoothies, and according to the website, it takes only two scoops to get "all the nutrition you need each morning to boost lean muscle, sustained energy, brain power, immune support, collagen production, digestive health, hair, skin and nails and more."

Sjögren's syndrome is identified as an autoimmune disorder that, according to John Hopkins Medicine, "targets moisture-producing glands and can cause systemic symptoms."

The most common symptoms include, dry eyes, dry mouth, swollen glands, prolonged fatigue, and a persistent dry cough. While the syndrome is more likely to develop in women who are 40 and older, Williams was diagnosed at age 31 after years of experiencing symptoms.

Women are 10 times more likely to get Sjögren's syndrome than men.

RELATED CONTENT: Have You Thought About Being A Raw Vegan? Here's What You Should Know

Ted Williams' Role At The McDonald's In Anaconda Provides A Calling

This first grader's take on his teacher's assignment differed markedly from classmates' responses.

"We were all asked to stand up and say what we wanted to be when we grew up," recalled Ted Williams. "There were firemen, there were police officers, there were princesses and there were cowboys.

"And when it was my turn, I said I wanted to be a thinker. Not really knowing what that meant, but that's what I wanted to be," he said.

Today, Williams, 47, lives west of Anaconda near Garrity Mountain. He is a shift manager at the city's McDonald's restaurant franchise who amicably greets his regulars and is greeted amicably by them. He gives and gets at the same time.

Ted Williams, a manager at the Anaconda McDonald's, stands for a portrait in Washoe Park on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024.

JOSEPH SCHELLER The Montana Standard

Many of these same customers notice the tremors in Williams' hands when he makes change or bequeaths Happy Meals, Big Macs and the like. It seems clear his life hasn't been easy.

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Years after elementary school, Williams was well along the path to earning the credentials necessary for a career in academia when his lifelong dream collapsed.

"My entire sense of self and my entire sense of self-esteem were based on the fact that I was a thinker," he said. "And then to learn that my brain was broken, that I could not rely on my brain to make proper life decisions, that I could not rely on it to understand the world correctly, it was life shattering."

In 2005, Williams was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after being beset for several years with troubling delusions. He said the delusions intensified during time spent in Israel on a Fulbright grant, when the distorted thinking might have been exacerbated by national turmoil linked to a major uprising by Palestinians that began in 2000.

He had been a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley, and a budding expert in ancient languages. 

"After the diagnosis, I just broke down. I had to be admitted to a hospital," Williams recalled.

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness and brain disease that, at this juncture in medical history, requires lifelong treatment — typically with anti-psychotic medications that can cause tremors and other side effects.  

The Mayo Clinic reports that researchers believe a mix of genetics, brain chemistry and environment likely play roles in causing schizophrenia. Risk factors include a family history of the disease, stressful life experiences — such as living in poverty — and taking mind-altering drugs as a young adult.

Later, psychiatrists refined Williams' diagnosis and added an alternate label:  schizoaffective disorder. In 2012, he was diagnosed also with Asperger's syndrome, believed to be an autism spectrum disorder.

Neither diagnosis would seem to destine a person for work that requires dozens of human interactions per shift with fast-food customers and colleagues.

Born in Colorado, Williams spent early years of his highly nomadic and impoverished childhood in Boulder, Montana. His father, who worked as a police officer, was not a presence in Williams' life after age 7.  

Williams, along with his brother and sister and their mother, Pam, moved often, living in Arco, Idaho, Jackpot, Nevada, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Bullhead City, Nevada.

There were some spells when the family lived in a big blue station wagon.

"We could fit all of us in there," Williams said.

His mother met a new man, Roy Horner, in Jackpot.

"I remember the day in detail when I came down the stairs and called him 'dad' for the first time," Williams recalled. "I chose him to be my dad because of who he was and the way he treated me, and it was so different than the way my father had treated me. I made a conscious decision to call him 'dad.'"

Williams believes he was in third grade at the time. The family remained mobile for years. At one point, his mother worked in Laughlin, Nevada, as a casino cage supervisor.

Years later, Williams was an undergraduate at the University of Arizona when friends encouraged him to attend raves and sample illegal drugs such as ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine.

"I am a very naïve person," he said. "I say that with all sincerity. I say it with all pride. I am very naïve when it comes to what is harmful or what is dangerous for me or what is good for me. I can't trust my own judgment, left to my own devices."

Williams became addicted to methamphetamine. His addiction and the emotional collapse that had followed the devastating psychiatric diagnosis in 2005 led inexorably to living on the streets. He was homeless for about 10 years, from 2011 to 2020, spending most of that time in Arizona or Michigan.

Williams was hunkered down in a homeless shelter in Michigan when his aunt in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County invited him to move in. She had recently lost her husband.

"The last time I used was Dec. 1, 2020," Williams said. "I got sober on the bus ride and that was it. I wanted a clean break, a new start."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has played a key role in sustaining his sobriety, he said.

"I've taken advantage of my church's addiction recovery program. I've taken advantage of my church's support," Williams said.

Many people in Anaconda know Williams only as "Ted," because that's the name they hear over the drive-through speaker at McDonald's or the person they greet at the window.

Williams routinely relies on the phrase "my friend" when conversing with customers, who seem to respond well to a familiarity that might rankle if voiced superficially by another fast-food worker.

But Williams isn't superficial. He said a speech and debate coach in high school helped him cope with and prepare for human interactions. Sometimes he practices specific responses to imagined scenarios.

"But that's not how 'my friend' happened," he said. "That happened because I have to be conscious of who I am addressing. If I am addressing my friend, there is no reason for me to be afraid of them because they are my friend.

"I don't have to be their friend but they are automatically my friend," Williams added.

His conversations with drive-through customers about what they owe sometimes includes a question: "Would you like to round up for the Ronald McDonald House?"

Ted Williams laughs while taking payment for a customer's order while working a morning shift at McDonald's on Sept. 12, 2024, in Anaconda.

JOSEPH SCHELLER The Montana Standard

Williams was recently honored by the Ronald McDonald House Charities in Missoula for his fund-raising skills. It was his commitment to this cause that led him to share his story with The Montana Standard.

He remains ambivalent about the medication required to manage the schizoaffective disorder.

"Even though I don't like the side effects, the medication has made it possible for me to think again," Williams said.

He is applying to an online graduate program focused on the Old Testament at Denver Seminary that could yield the advanced degree that has persisted as a dream goal. Williams would continue working at the McDonald's in Anaconda, where he has found a calling.

After his diagnosis of schizophrenia, Williams felt bereft.

"I wondered what I had done for God to take his stewardship from me," he said. "I think every person is given a stewardship, given something in this world to accomplish, just as something to aspire to."

He felt at the time that God had concluded he had failed.

"I didn't just fail at my stewardship, I had it taken away," Williams said. "Those were the initial thoughts, and they persisted for years."

For more than a decade, that sense of estrangement and failure exacerbated Williams' troubles — addiction, homelessness, deluded thinking.

He found a home at the McDonald's in Anaconda and a renewed sense of purpose. He wonders sometimes why he seems to be such a popular figure in Anaconda but then realizes the feeling is mutual.

"I don't understand why I am that big a deal. What I do understand is how big a deal my customers are, because however they say I make them feel is exactly how they make me feel," Williams said.

"It's just recognition. And who doesn't want to be recognized for who they are? Who doesn't want to be visualized as a total person? And in 15 seconds I like to think they are making me feel like a whole person, because we're part and parcel of a great whole."

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