Christina Applegate Shares Health Update, Vows to Keep Fighting for MS Community: “I Will Speak Out on Your Behalf Forever”

Christina Applegate revealed she’s dealing with debilitating mobility issues after her multiple sclerosis misdiagnosis.

via: People

Christina Applegate says even though she learned she does not have multiple sclerosis, she still feels a bond with members of the MS community—and she has a message for them: “I am still your warrior.”

Speaking on the new Oct. 27 episode of her podcast MeSsy, one week after revealing her misdiagnosis, Applegate promised, “I’m still going to speak out on your behalf forever and ever. I still feel like part of this community and no matter what I love you.”

The actress’s co-host Jamie Lynn Sigler reassured listeners that despite Applegate’s news, they intend to continue the podcast. “This is just about our lives and the messiness of life in general. It was never meant to be solely MS focused.”

Applegate gave an update on her health, saying “I feel OK” and telling her listeners that since revealing her misdiagnosis on the Oct. 20 episode, she’s had a great deal of support: “That’s all I can want.”

She also said that just as her misdiagnosis confused her, she knows it was confusing to others as well: “On the daily, I don’t even understand what the heck’s going on, so I’m sure that news coming to people, that’s an adjustment,” said Applegate, who added that she was grateful they had invited Dr. Marwa Kaisey, associate professor with the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center department of neurology, onto their previous podcast to explain how a misdiagnosis can happen.

“A lot of people are going, ‘Oh snap, I should check this out.’ But I never wanted to cause a hysteria in any way, shape or form.”

Kaisey told listeners last week MS misdiagnoses are “fairly common” due to the fact that “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.” Nearly 20% of those initially diagnosed with MS turn out not to have the disease, Kaisey told Sigler and Applegate on the podcast.

On the new episode, Sigler told Applegate that because she was open about her own misdiagnosis, “I think a lot of people feel very seen.” Sigler added that Applegate helped launch an important discussion: “It’s ignited and supported a conversation that’s been out there but maybe not getting the visibility or attention that some people felt that it should.”

She continued, “Not even just about a misdiagnosis, but about how difficult it is to get a correct diagnosis, and all of the different types of things, especially autoimmune and neurological that can mimic one of the other, and the frustration that comes along with that, and the heaviness that can come with a diagnosis, and all the feelings around it.”

Applegate shared that she’s struggling with ongoing mobility issues: “I actually timed it today. It took me 10 minutes to be able to move off my pillow and get out of the bed and stand up. I don’t know what’s going on. This is what I am still living with.” And she admitted that her mind goes to extremes, wondering if whatever is really ailing her might have a cure (maybe “there’s a pill or something that I could take to feel better”) or if instead, “it’s something really macabre.” It feels like “living in no-man’s land,” she says.

Thinking about the future can be overwhelming, she admitted. Her next step is to see a rheumatologist “and then, you know, we’ll go from there. If that doesn’t come with any kind of results, then we’re going to go to a different specialist and then a different specialist,” she says. “That starts to overwhelm me...I think I just have to go, all right, one step at a time.”