Inside Christina Applegate’s Ongoing Health Battle
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate has been on our screens since she was a teenager, conquering TV, film and even Broadway. But these days she's facing a different kind of challenge, one that has greatly impacted her health and quality of life. As she first revealed in August 2021, the Dead to Me star is battling multiple sclerosis.
Here is everything we know about Christina Applegate’s health struggles.
What is wrong with Christina Applegate?
In August 2021, Christina Applegate revealed in a tweet that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She wrote, “Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some a--hole blocks it. As one of my friends that has MS said ‘we wake up and take the indicated action.’ And that’s what I do. So now I ask for privacy. As I go through this thing. Thank you xo.”
This was not Applegate’s first brush with a serious health condition. In 2008, the actress was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though the disease was found only in her left breast, after she learned she had the BRCA1 genetic mutation, which gives carriers an increased risk of both breast and ovarian cancer, she opted to have a double mastectomy and later to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.
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What is Christina Applegate's health condition?
Actress Christina Applegate suffers from multiple sclerosis. As a result, her life has been greatly impacted. In a 2022 interview with Kelly Clarkson, Applegate bluntly spoke about the moment she was diagnosed with MS, revealing, “It sucked balls.”
When was Christina Applegate diagnosed with multiple sclerosis?
Christina Applegate publicly announced that she had been diagnosed with MS in August 2021, revealing that she had received the diagnosis a few months prior. Applegate got the troubling news while she was filming the third and final season of her Netflix series Dead to Me.
"I found out on a Monday after work that I had MS, a disease I’m gonna have for the rest of my life,” she explained. "... I didn’t know what was happening to me. I couldn’t walk. They had to use a wheelchair to get me to set. I was freaking out. Someone was like, 'You need an MRI.'"
The show took a hiatus during production to allow Applegate to begin treatment for the disease, though the actress eventually returned to finish production.
What causes multiple sclerosis?
The medical community does not know at this time what causes multiple sclerosis. It is known as an "immune mediated disease" that mainly impacts the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system). MS causes a sufferer’s immune system to attack its own tissue, specifically destroying the fatty substance that coats and protects nerve fibers (myelin) in the spinal cord and brain. When the myelin is damaged, exposing the nerve fiber, the messages that travel along that conduit can be slowed or blocked, leading to a number of potentially debilitating symptoms. Multiple sclerosis can cause permanent damage and/or deterioration of the nerve fibers.
At this time, experts believe the reason MS occurs in some people and not others has to do with a combination of genetics and environmental factors. People with a family history of MS are at a higher risk of developing the disease.
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What are the symptoms of multiple sclerosis?
The signs and symptoms can vary as they depend on the location and severity of the patient's nerve-fiber damage in their central nervous system. Some people with MS may experience debilitating symptoms while others are able to maintain fairly normal lives even with the disease.
Common symptoms of MS are: body tingling, numbness or weakness in one or more limbs (this tends to impact one side of the body at a time), electric-shock sensations with certain movements of the neck (known as "Lhermitte's sign"), lack of coordination, an unsteady gait or even the inability to walk at all, partial or even complete loss of vision (this typically occurs in one eye at a time), which can be combined with pain during eye movement, prolonged double vision, blurred vision, vertigo, fatigue, slurred speech, sexual dysfunction, bowel and/or bladder dysfunction, cognitive issues and finally, mood disturbances.
Those who have MS may experience all or just a few of the above symptoms and the severity can range depending on the disease’s progression.
After being diagnosed with MS in 2021, Christina Applegate revealed she had unknowingly been experiencing “very small symptoms” of the chronic disease for four years.
In the weeks prior to her diagnosis, the symptoms worsened, with the actress explaining, “I didn’t know what was happening to me. That January, my toes got numb, and I ignored it. The balls of my foot got numb, and I ignored it. All of a sudden, I’d be, like, falling over. People were like, ‘Oh, it’s just neuropathy.’ At this point, they had to take me with a wheelchair to set because I couldn’t walk if the set was far. I was sleeping all the time, and I gained 40 pounds—a lot of things happened.”
Is there a cure for multiple sclerosis?
At this time, there is no cure for multiple sclerosis. However, there are several treatments to help those who have MS. In addition, there have been several breakthroughs with experimental treatments that show promise. More than a dozen disease-modifying therapies have been approved by the FDA for the treatment of MS and several other treatments are in various phases of clinical trials to see their efficacy in treating the disease.
What is the life expectancy of someone with multiple sclerosis?
Multiple sclerosis is very rarely fatal. However, complications from the disease can cause life threatening issues like chest or bladder infections or difficulty swallowing. As a result, the life expectancy for someone with MS is around five-to-10 years lower than average, although that number has gone down—and is expected to continue to go down—due to the development of efficient treatments. In fact, over the past 25 years, the life expectancy for people with MS has increased.
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Has Christina Applegate retired from acting because of her multiple sclerosis?
In 2023, Christina Applegate indicated that she likely has retired from on-camera work after finishing filming Netflix’s Dead to Me. The actress said, “I'm probably not going to work on-camera again.”
She went on to praise her Dead to Me co-star Linda Cardellini. “Ping-pong is so much more fun when the other person is just as good as you are. I'm so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I've ever worked with in my entire life, if not the greatest human I've ever known."
Applegate has also said, “[My Dead to Me Character] Jen Harding is … quite possibly the last I’ll play. With my disease, I don’t know how capable I am. But this was a gift.”
However, she did go on to participate in an online table read of It’s a Wonderful Life in December 2022, opening up the hope that she may be able to continue in the industry in some way, shape or form.
She has indicated she would be open to working more behind-the-scenes. “I'm pretty convinced that this was it, you know? But who knows—I'm probably gonna get real bored of being in my room. I'd like to develop stuff, I'd like to produce stuff. I've got a lot of ideas in my mind, and I just need to get them executed."
What has Christina Applegate said recently about her health?
Christina Applegate has been candid about the struggles she now faces in her daily life due to her multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
In 2023, the actress revealed, “With the disease of MS, it's never a good day. You just have little shitty days. People are like, 'Well, why don't you take more showers?' Well, because getting in the shower is frightening. You can fall, you can slip, your legs can buckle. Especially because I have a glass shower. It's frightening to me to get in there."
She continued, “There are just certain things that people take for granted in their lives that I took for granted. Going down the stairs, carrying things—you can't do that anymore. It f---ing sucks."
In addition, Applegate needs to keep her social circle small. "I actually don't want to be around a lot of people because I'm immunocompromised. I have my friend who lives here during the week and she helps me take care of [my daughter] Sadie. And then on the weekend I have a caretaker. I also don't want a lot of stimulation of the nervous system because it can be a little bit too much for me. I like to keep it as quiet and as mellow as possible.”
Here’s wishing the best for Applegate in her battle against MS!
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