Christina Applegate once shared the five 'weird' symptoms she ignored before realising she had multiple sclerosis (MS) as she thought one was something else.
The 53-year-old Dead to Me actor was diagnosed with MS back 2021 while working the third and final season of the Netflix comedy-drama.
As per the NHS, the condition of MS 'can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance'.
It is around two to three times more likely to be found in women than men and patients usually receive a diagnosis in their 20s, 30s or 40s, but it can develop at any age.
Throughout her health journey, Applegate has been very open about the autoimmune condition and previously shared her experiences leading up to receiving the diagnosis and listed some 'weird' symptoms to look out for.
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The symptoms in question include:
- Balance issues
- Speech issues
- Shaky hands
- Feeling weak at the knees (when walking etc.)
- Numb toes
During an appearance on SiriusXM's This Life of Mine with James Corden, Applegate said: "Things just started to get weirder and weirder, and before I knew it, we were about to start shooting the last season of Dead To Me and by this time I was like, 'You guys, I can't even walk up the steps to my trailer'."
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The actor then organised check-ups alongside an MRI scan of her brain.
She then had to leave the set of Dead to Me to receive the results from her doctor.
Applegate recalled: "[I] opened up my Zoom, and there he was, and he just looked at me, and he goes, 'I'm so sorry'."
She continued: "I was like, 'What do you mean?' and he goes, 'Here's a picture of your brain. Sorry', and there's like 30 lesions all over my brain and I went, 'No, please don't tell me this. Please don't tell me this'.
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"I had to call production. I said, 'You guys, it's f**king MS,' and they're like, 'OK, we're shutting down for the week'."
Applegate went on to add: "That was it, and then we were just trying to figure out how to film and stuff, and we did. I mean, we finished it. It took us a long time, but we finished it. But yeah, I remember that moment like it was yesterday."
And, more recently, the Anchorman star opened up some more about what it was like when her symptoms first started appearing on set in 2019.
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On Tuesday (10 December), she discussed the situation on her Messy podcast, which she co-hosts with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS - explaining she initially put one major symptom down to working too hard on set.
She explained that she was running across a field for a scene for the pilot episode and fell down - which she now recognises as an early sign of her autoimmune condition.
"I remember falling that day," Applegate recalled "Hi, first sign of MS!"
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Her close friend, Liz Feldman, who is also the creator of Dead To Me, was present during the moment and recounted: "I remember you losing your balance a couple of times but it was very hard to figure out.
"I remember one time it was like really late at night, we’d been shooting probably 14 or 15 hours, it seemed completely reasonable that anybody would be collapsing."
Discussing Applegate's diagnosis, Feldman continued: "There’s no handbook for this.
"I could just sense that A, she was scared and B, that something was wrong, something in her body was not working the way that she wanted it to. I told her so many times that it’s just a TV show; we’re making a TV show and it’s so silly, you know, at the end of the day!"
She added: "I knew Christina well enough to know that something major had to be going on because she’s an extreme professional."
Applegate took the moment to thank the show's producers for being so accommodating to her condition, especially when her mobility started declining towards the end of the show.
"That would not happen anywhere else," she praised. "So my gratitude toward you guys being humans - because you should be humans and love other humans! - is, like, I can’t even tell you, that’s not the normal reaction!"
Topics: Christina Applegate, Celebrity, Health
Rhiannon Ingle