Christina Applegate says she doesn’t have MS — but she’s still sick, and she still needs answers.
During her October 20 return to MeSsy, the podcast she co-hosts with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the Dead to Me actress revealed that she’d been misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis. While others welcomed this news, Applegate was still trying to process what it meant for her health.
“She came into my room and said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS,’” Applegate recalled. “I was, like, not happy at all. Everybody else was so happy.”
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‘I Lost Everything’
Applegate, who publicly shared her MS diagnosis in 2021, became emotional (rightfully so) while discussing how much her health has affected her career and everyday life.
“I lost everything. I lost my job,” she said. “I get really emotional because it stopped my life,” she continued. “I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s offices. I can’t walk from the car to the room. I’m still in this. Nothing magical happened when she said, ‘You don’t have MS.’”
The actress also admitted that she feels guilty after spending years sharing her experience with the MS community. “I feel like I let everybody down,” she told Sigler, who has MS herself. Her co-host reassured her: “You didn’t mislead anyone.”
Redditors are backing her up, too. “She was diagnosed with it by her doctor, and trusted the diagnosis,” one person wrote. Others shared their own experiences of having a diagnosis withdrawn after years of treatment.
Why MS Can Be Difficult to Diagnose
There isn’t a single test that definitively establishes an MS diagnosis, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation. Doctors review a person’s symptoms, medical history, neurological exam, and MRI findings.
Other conditions, including migraine and lupus, can cause similar-looking brain lesions. That overlap can make MS harder to diagnose.
Applegate hasn’t shared a new diagnosis. “I haven’t gotten better, Jamie,” she said. “If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways.”
She’s still dealing with the symptoms that sent her to the doctor in the first place. It’s understandable that she’d want answers, not congratulations.
