Tens of millions of people watch Carrie Ann Inaba sitting behind the judges’ table every Tuesday when Dancing with the Stars airs. She is animated and astute, delivering scores with the kind of confidence that makes you forget anything could go wrong. For years, that image has been meticulously preserved: polished, vivacious, and completely composed. The weariness she’s been dealing with since before some of them were born, the dry eyes so bad they once caused corneal damage, or the joint pain that lurks beneath every public appearance like a low hum that never quite goes away are all things that most viewers fail to notice.
Carrie Ann Inaba suffers from Sjögren’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that targets the body’s moisture-producing glands. The disease doesn’t really limit itself, but it most obviously affects the mouth and eyes. It can weaken the immune system, cause organ inflammation, and subtly harm body parts that no one considers examining. It is a disease that mimics the symptoms of twelve other conditions, including lupus, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, which is precisely why it was so challenging to diagnose for so long.
According to reports, Inaba’s symptoms began in childhood. Damaged corneas, recurring eye irritation, and visits to specialists that led nowhere. She requested a simple tear production test from her ophthalmologist for years, but was told it wasn’t required. Before a rheumatologist ordered the blood work that verified what her body had apparently been signaling for decades, ten years of worsening symptoms and a series of incorrect turns through the medical system were required. It was 2013. She was well into her career and well into her public life, and she had been quietly suffering for most of that time without knowing what she was going through.
That timeline has a subtle, irritating quality. Ten years of symptoms that were minimized or ignored. Patients with Sjögren’s disease, most of whom are women, frequently have to wait years for an accurate diagnosis. Even doctors are unaware of the illness, and its symptoms may seem insignificant on their own. When taken as a whole, they can be subtly disastrous. Carrie Ann received the diagnosis soon after her father passed away, which was one of the darkest times in her life. She has talked about how relieved she was to receive the results at last. Not joy, not tranquility. relief. That particular detail conveys something.
Now, practically every aspect of her day is shaped by how she manages her illness. It’s quiet on Sunday before a Tuesday taping. Monday is a light day. The day following filming is purposefully left unplanned. She has developed what she refers to as “energy management,” which sounds almost businesslike until you realize that it actually means learning to stop fighting your body and start listening to it instead. She regularly practices reiki. She recognized and eliminated the things that caused her inflammation. She trained herself to read her own lab results and put together a care team. The final sentence is instructive. She created her own roadmap because the medical system had not given it to her.
Inaba was especially outspoken about her illness in April and June of 2026. She collaborated with Novartis on the SJørUT for Sjögren’s campaign and had video chats with other patients, doctors, and the leadership of Sjögren’s Foundation. The campaign’s straightforward goal is to encourage people to speak up about their symptoms. The fact that Inaba acknowledged that she “suffered in silence for a long time” lends significant weight to that statement. She is not engaging in advocacy. She is reporting directly from the scene.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that she had another medical emergency earlier this year—a mid-flight incident that necessitated hospital care—which turned out to be severe food poisoning instead of a flare-up of Sjögren’s disease. She took care to make that clear. It appears that she cares about the distinction. She claimed that although Sjögren’s is always present, it isn’t always held accountable. She has had to learn the rhythms of her own condition to a great extent, as evidenced by her level of precision about it.
The everydayness of Carrie Ann Inaba’s experiences is what makes her story resonate beyond the celebrity angle. Years of being told that the symptoms could be controlled. Years of compensation and adjustment. A diagnosis that came too late to feel like a lifesaver. Then there is the laborious, unglamorous task of constructing a life around a chronic illness instead of despite it. For millions of people who will never be able to sit at the judges’ table on national television, that is a story that is played out in silence and continuously. She just so happens to be doing it in public right now, and it seems to be intentional.
FAQs
1. What illness does Carrie Ann Inaba have?
She has Sjögren’s disease, a chronic autoimmune condition affecting moisture-producing glands.
2. When was Carrie Ann Inaba diagnosed with Sjögren’s disease?
A rheumatologist confirmed her diagnosis in 2013 after a decade of symptoms.
3. How long did it take for Carrie Ann to get a correct diagnosis?
It took over ten years of worsening symptoms and multiple wrong diagnoses.
4. How does Carrie Ann Inaba manage her illness?
She uses careful scheduling, rest days, reiki, and strict energy management.
5. What campaign is Carrie Ann Inaba involved in for Sjögren’s awareness?
She partnered with Novartis on the SJÖUT for Sjögren’s education campaign.