{"id":661296,"date":"2026-10-21T10:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661296\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T10:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:12:18","slug":"actor-christina-applegate-reveals-she-was-misdiagnosed-with-multiple-sclerosis-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661296\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Christina Applegate reveals she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After becoming a prominent advocate for multiple sclerosis awareness and chronicling her struggles<\/a> in an emotional memoir published in March, the Emmy-winning actor Christina Applegate<\/a> has revealed she does not have the debilitating autoimmune disease after all.<\/p>\n

Applegate (54) made the stunning announcement in an episode of her podcast MeSsy, recorded with fellow actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler, posted to YouTube on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m back at square one \u2013 that I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on with me,\u201d she said through tears.<\/p>\n

Applegate recalled the moment she found out about the misdiagnosis in a visit to her doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came into my room and said, \u2018Congratulations \u2013 you don\u2019t have MS.\u2019 I was not happy at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get misdiagnosed, and all of a sudden I\u2019m better. I haven\u2019t gotten better, Jamie. If anything, I\u2019ve gotten worse in some ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor\u2019s office. I can\u2019t walk from the car to the room. I\u2019m still in this. Nothing magical happened when she said, \u2018You don\u2019t have MS.\u2019 Nothing magical happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s weird because I feel like I let everybody down. It\u2019s this weird feeling of like I became this, you and I, the poster children for MS. All that I did, everything that I was doing, I had a f**king reason as to why my day sucked every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now I don\u2019t have a reason. It\u2019s very unnerving and it\u2019s really confusing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Celebrity Traitors: Is James Acaster the worst Traitor in the history of the show?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Applegate had revealed in 2021 that she was diagnosed with MS. In an interview with People magazine promoting her memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, she said was largely confined to bed because of her diagnosed condition.<\/p>\n

She is known for her roles in the TV series Married … With Children and Dead to Me \u2013 as well as the films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Don\u2019t Tell Mom the Babysitter\u2019s Dead.<\/p>\n

Applegate also worked on the TV show Friends and won a 2002 Emmy for outstanding guest acting in a comedy series.<\/p>\n

She retired from acting two years after the 2021 MS diagnosis, when she wrapped up her role on Dead to Me.<\/p>\n

Applegate had also stepped back over the last six months from the podcast with Sigler, who revealed in 2016 her own diagnosis of relapsing MS (RMS).<\/p>\n

During that period, Applegate said in Tuesday\u2019s episode, \u201ca lot of interesting things happened to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure people are saying like, \u2018Crybaby, you don\u2019t have MS, you know, that\u2019s a good thing\u2019 \u2013 but no, no, no<\/p>\n

She recalled originally receiving her diagnosis in 2021, when a doctor showed her images of dozens of lesions on her brain and confirmed she had MS. \u201cThat was it, right? That was my answer to everything going on,\u201d she said, saying she began to feel safe and welcome in the MS community as her treatment moved on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had every symptom of someone with MS. Every single one.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said a study into her diagnosis began \u201ca couple of years ago\u201d after cell testing produced curious results. Now that she knows she does not have the disease, she said: \u201cThat\u2019s going to be an online investigation my doctors are going to get into just to find out what has been happening since 2021. Why did this happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the episode, Sigler and Applegate discuss what they say is a trend of misdiagnoses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have come to learn this is not that rare of an occurrence, especially when it comes to MS,\u201d Sigler said.<\/p>\n

Applegate added: \u201cThere\u2019s a pretty damn high number of misdiagnoses with MS, and that\u2019s after people have been going through the process of it, with the infusions, for many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear now they\u2019re finding something different, that something else is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Applegate said learning she doesn\u2019t have the disease was challenging mentally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure people are saying like, \u2018Crybaby, you don\u2019t have MS, you know, that\u2019s a good thing\u2019 \u2013 but no, no, no,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sitting here having slept all day yesterday, feeling like absolute crap because of the heat. My legs aren\u2019t working. You know, all the same stuff is happening to me, and yet I have this thing of like, well, you don\u2019t have that, so maybe you\u2019re faking it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my head I\u2019m like, what can I be doing differently? This is what I\u2019m sure a lot of people start thinking when they get their misdiagnoses. It\u2019s like, \u2018Well, what have I done wrong? What am I doing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sigler told Applegate that she never let anybody down.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Tyson on Netflix: A jump scare during this series may deter some viewers from continuingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything you did, and shared, and were, and are to so many people doesn\u2019t go anywhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of this misdiagnosis or this new information that you have in your life, that doesn\u2019t take away anything that you did. You didn\u2019t mislead anyone. In no way should you feel bad or uneasy about your continuing to share your journey with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2024 Swiss-led study, published in the Multiple Sclerosis Journal, found \u201chigh-level evidence for high proportions of misdiagnosis and underdiagnoses of MS\u201d \u2013 including a 15 per cent misdiagnosis rate in cases it looked at. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After becoming a prominent advocate for multiple sclerosis awareness and chronicling her struggles in an emotional memoir published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2121,321,93,61,60,115],"class_list":["post-661296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-womens-health","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}