Christina Applegate announced on Tuesday that she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis. more than five years After announcing she had been told she had a chronic illness.
Applegate, 54, shared the news on her podcast MeSsy, where she and co-host Jamie-Lynn Siegler discuss life with multiple sclerosis. Applegate has paused the podcast in recent weeks. She said Tuesday that she had taken time to process the new information.
Applegate said that “a few years ago, out of the blue,” her doctors wanted to stop her infusion therapy to see how her B cells responded. The cell count did not increase or decrease after treatment was stopped, which started “a study into my diagnosis,” Applegate said. Eventually, her doctors got surprising news: Applegate didn’t have multiple sclerosis at all.
“She walked into my room and said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have multiple sclerosis,'” Applegate said. “I’m not happy at all. Everyone else is happy.”
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the central nervous system. Symptoms vary from person to person, and there are many types of the disease, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of America. The cause of this condition is unclear.
Dr. Marva Casey, an associate professor in the department of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said in the podcast that almost one in five people who are told they have multiple sclerosis “do not actually have the disease.” Misdiagnosis of the condition is “fairly common,” she said, because there isn’t a single test that can detect it.
Applegate said she still experiences debilitating symptoms.
“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I’m better,” Applegate said. “If anything, I’ve gotten worse. So I’m back to square one, I don’t know what happened to me. It’s going to be an online investigation that my doctor will conduct just to find out what has happened since 2021, why is this happening?”
Applegate has previously described symptoms in her life, including numbness, a feeling of being off balance and a tingling sensation in her extremities. she said in an article 2022 New York Times Interview She “cannot walk without crutches.”
In the same interview, she said she used a wheelchair while filming the hit Netflix series “Dead To Me,” and that the show’s script was adapted to accommodate her symptoms. Applegate said her symptoms could lead to her death by 2023 Give up acting in front of the camera.
Applegate said that when she was first diagnosed, she underwent a spinal tap and an MRI. She said tests showed she had brain damage. She became an outspoken advocate for multiple sclerosis after she was officially diagnosed with the disease. On Tuesday, she said the misdiagnosis left her feeling like “I’d let everyone down.”
“It’s very disturbing and really confusing to me,” Applegate said.