Christina Applegate says mystery illness is ‘getting worse’ in health update after MS misdiagnosis
Christina Applegate has said her mystery condition is ‘getting worse’ after she discovered she’d been misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
The 54-year-old announced that she had been diagnosed with MS in 2021 after experiencing numbness in her toes.
During an appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, she shared her first symptom, telling the host: "My toes weren't feeling right. Eventually, over those months it grew from my toes to my ankles... from my knees down.
"I was losing balance [and] the pain was extraordinary. When I say numb it's numb but it hurts."
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However, earlier this month Applegate revealed she had been given a misdiagnosis and doesn’t have MS - leaving her ‘back at square one’ over why she continues to have debilitating symptoms that have resuled in her being hospitalised.
Speaking on her MeSsy podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler - where the pair discuss their life with MS - on 20 October, she recalled the moment her doctor told her she doesn’t have the condition.
“She came into my room and said, 'Congratulations, you don’t have MS',” the Anchorman actor recalled.
“I was, like, not happy at all. Everybody else was so happy.”
She added: “You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the 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.”
In an update on this week’s episode of the podcast, Applegate said she still continued to struggle with her symptoms and believes that her mystery illness is getting ‘worse’.
“It took me 10 minutes to be able to move off my pillow and get out of the bed and stand up, at which point I almost couldn't walk to the bathroom,” she shared.
Applegate said she now keeps a walker next to her bed to help her move around.
“I don't know what's going on,” she continued.
“This is what I'm still living with. And I never had that before. I was able to sit up and stuff.
“So this is what I said when things are getting worse or they're just new. Something new is happening. So it took 10 minutes just to sit my head up, just to move without excruciating pain and weakness.”
MS is an incurable condition that affects the brain and spinal cord.
Everyone with the condition is affected differently, according to the NHS, but common symptoms include feeling extremely tired; problems with visions, such as blurred vision; feeling off balance, or dizzy; numbness or tingling in different parts of your body; muscles camps; and problems with memory or concentration.
Although it cannot be cured, treatment can often help manage it.
There is no single test to diagnose MS.
Dr Marwa Kaisey from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center department of neurology, explained on the MeSsy podcast that misdiagnosis can be ‘fairly common’ with 20 percent of those diagnosed reportedly turning out to not have the disease.
She explained: “We don’t have one single test for MS. It’s not like we have something like a pregnancy test that says, ‘Yes. You have it.’ ‘No. You don’t.’ It’s a list of criteria.”
Topics: Celebrity, Health, Christina Applegate
Claire Reid