Christina Applegate has opened up about her day-to-day living with multiple sclerosis.
The Emmy-winning actor, 54, was diagnosed with MS — an incurable autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord — in 2021, and has spoken openly about the debilitating pain of the condition.
She now spends a big part of each day in her bed because her chronic pain makes it hard to move around, she told People in an interview published Tuesday ahead of the release of her upcoming memoir, You With The Sad Eyes.
Applegate said despite the excruciating discomfort, she is committed to her routine of taking her 15-year-old daughter, Sadie, to school and activities.
“I want to take her; it’s my favorite thing to do. It’s the only time we have together by ourselves,” Applegate told the outlet. “I tell myself, ‘Just get her there safely and get home so you can get back into bed.’ And that’s what I do.”
Christina Applegate said she spends the majority of her days in bed due to her chronic pain from multiple sclerosis (Getty Images)
Applegate added that she is devoted to taking her daughter, Sadie Grace LeNoble, to school and activities each day (Getty Images)
The Married… with Children actor often speaks about her condition on her MesSy podcast, which she hosts alongside Sopranos actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also lives with MS.
Applegate said in November 2024 that she “lays in bed screaming” because of the pain.
“Jamie and I have different — everybody has different ways of it showing up. I lay in bed screaming. Like, the sharp pains, the ache, that squeezing,” she said at the time.
The Dead To Me star went on to say, “I can’t even pick up my phone sometimes, because now it’s traveled into my hands. So I’ll try to go get my phone, or get my remote to turn on the TV [and] sometimes, I can’t even hold them. I can’t open bottles now.”
Symptoms of MS can include extreme tiredness, numbness in parts of the body, being off-balance or dizzy, muscle cramps and spasms, and memory problems, to name a few.
Applegate said in the 2024 episode: “Jamie knows that I just lay in bed all the time. I mean, I worked for almost 50 years, so I’m kind of okay with it. But if I put my feet on the ground and they’re hurting like extraordinarily bad to the touch, I was like, ‘Yep. Gonna get back in my bed and pee in my diaper because I don’t feel like walking all the way to the damn bathroom.’”
She added, “I actually don’t lay here and pee in my diaper. That’s just a joke. But it’s so freaking painful and so hard and so awkward.”