Christina Applegate shares what she might actually have following MS misdiagnosis
Christina Applegate has issued a health update after revealing she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
The American actress, 54, was diagnosed with the chronic autoimmune condition in early 2021, and since then has been candid about the symptoms she’s faced and has been keen to raise awareness of the disease using her public platform.
MS affects the brain and spinal cord; it cannot currently be cured, but treatment can often help manage it.
However, after seven months away, on 20 October, she returned to her MeSsy podcast with the shocking news that she’d actually been misdiagnosed and doesn’t have MS.
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She emotionally revealed she’s 'back at square one' after finding out that she doesn't have the illness, but is still suffering from debilitating symptoms.
Now, during the latest episode of the podcast on 3 November, which she co-hosts with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Applegate shared a further update and revealed that she’s currently undergoing testing for other diseases that have similar symptoms to MS, to get to the bottom of what’s going on.
Speaking to guest Jack Osbourne, who has MS, the Dead to Me actress explained: "We're going into square one, just doing some testing and going one by one of kind of the sister diseases to MS.”
She outlined: “You’ve got RA [rheumatoid arthritis], and you’ve got lupus and Lyme disease and all these things that kind of can mimic MS. So now I’m being tested for all that stuff slowly but surely.”
As per the NHS, rheumatoid arthritis is a long-term condition that causes pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints, usually affecting the hands, feet, and wrists.
Lupus is a condition where your immune system, instead of only attacking germs, mistakenly attacks your own body, affecting the joints, skin, kidneys, and more.
As explained by Lupus UK, because it can mimic many other illnesses, it’s sometimes called ‘the great imitator’.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks. Many celebrities have opened up about struggling with it, including Justin Bieber and Bella Hadid.
Applegate emotionally added that she’s been struggling with her identity since finding out she was misdiagnosed.
She told listeners: “It’s hard for me to try to shake that identity because it’s been my identity for so long. If there’s something I can be doing to feel better, because I don’t have the stigma of MS or I don’t have, you know, the criteria of that, whatever that is, please let me know. I am wanting the advice right now.”
Earlier this month, when she first announced the misdiagnosis news, the actress told her listeners through tears: “She came into my room and said, 'Congratulations, you don't have MS,'. I was, like, not happy at all. Everybody else was so happy.
Applegate added: "You don't get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I'm better. I haven't gotten better, Jamie! If anything, I've gotten worse.
"So I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me. And that’s going to be an online investigation that my doctors are going to be getting into just to find out what has been going on since 2021. Why did this happen?”
She added: "I lost my job. I lost - I’m sorry. What do you say to someone who’s been living with this for six years - God, I’m so sorry - because it stopped my life.
"I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s office. 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.’ Nothing magical happened.
“It’s weird because I feel like I let everybody down. It’s this weird feeling because I became this - you and I, the poster children for MS. And everything I was doing. I had a reason. I had a f***ing reason as to why my day sucked every day. And now I don’t have a reason, and it’s very unnerving, and it’s very confusing for me."
Topics: Christina Applegate, Celebrity, Health, Podcasts, News
Madison Burgess
