Christina Applegate says she was misdiagnosed and does not have MS: 'I'm back at square one'
Five years after going public with multiple sclerosis, the actress told her MeSsy podcast that her doctor has ruled MS out. Her symptoms have not improved, she still uses a wheelchair at appointments, and doctors are now trying to find the cause.
Christina Applegate, who announced in 2021 that she had multiple sclerosis and became one of the best-known voices of the MS community, says she does not have the disease after all. The 54-year-old Emmy winner made the revelation in a two-part episode of MeSsy, the podcast she co-hosts with actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who has lived with MS since 2016. The episodes, released on Tuesday, 20 October, marked her return after several months away from the show.
Applegate said that when she was first tested in 2021 she had brain and spinal MRIs and a spinal tap, and was shown dozens of lesions on her brain. 'That was it. That was my answer to everything that was going on,' she said. She then received infusion treatment for years. A couple of years ago, her doctor took her off the infusions to monitor her B cells; when the count did not change, a closer review of her diagnosis began. 'She came into my room and said, "Congratulations, you don't have MS,"' Applegate recalled in tears. 'I was not happy at all. Everybody else was so happy.'
The news has not changed how she feels. 'You don't get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I'm better. I haven't gotten better. If anything, I've gotten worse in some ways,' she said. 'So I'm back at square one, where I don't know what's going on with me.' She said she still needs a wheelchair when she goes to the doctor's office and cannot walk from the car to the room. She has not been given a new diagnosis: she said her doctors will investigate what has been happening to her since 2021, a process due to begin next week, and that she will have to find the right specialists.
Applegate said she felt she had 'let everybody down' after becoming, with Sigler, a public face of MS, and described the news as 'very unnerving' and 'really confusing'. Sigler told her she had misled no one. On the podcast, Cedars-Sinai neurologist Dr Marwa Kaisey said misdiagnosis of MS is fairly common because there is no single test for the condition; a 2024 study in the Multiple Sclerosis Journal also found high rates of misdiagnosis. Applegate, known for Married... with Children, Anchorman and Netflix's Dead to Me, stepped back from on-camera acting after Dead to Me ended and published her memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, in March.