Christina Applegate said she thought she had been living with multiple sclerosis for five years until recently learning the diagnosis was wrong, telling listeners of her 'Messy' podcast she was 'not happy at all' about the news and was in tears when she found out.
'You don't get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I'm better,' Applegate said on the two-part episode, co-hosted by Jamie-Lynn Sigler. 'If anything, I've gotten worse.' The actress, known for roles in 'Anchorman' and 'Married... With Children,' said her doctor had suggested pausing her MS infusion treatment to see how her body reacted; when it did not respond the way MS would predict, further tests led doctors to conclude she did not have the autoimmune disease after all.
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.
Christina Applegate, recalling the moment she learned of the misdiagnosis
Applegate said an investigation into what is actually causing her ongoing symptoms, which she experiences daily, is set to begin next week, leaving her, in her words, 'back at square one' without an explanation for her condition. MS can cause muscle stiffness and difficulty walking or talking, and Applegate had spoken publicly about living with the disease since her 2021 diagnosis.
Dr Michael Kornberg, an associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins, said misdiagnoses can be especially distressing for people managing chronic illness. 'It becomes part of your identity,' he said, describing how patients build their understanding of their own bodies, treatment routines and support networks around a diagnosis that, in this case, turned out not to be accurate.
Applegate has not said what condition doctors now suspect is responsible for her symptoms, and her team has not given a timeline for when further test results might clarify the picture.