Christina Applegate shares 'weird' symptoms she experienced before being diagnosed with MS
'Dead to Me' star suffered balance and speech issues for months before receiving MS diagnosis in 2021
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Christina Applegate will never forget the day she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Applegate, 52, remembered "feeling so ill for so many months" before receiving the news that she suffered with MS, a chronic disease which causes the body's immune system to mistakenly attack nerves in the brain and spinal cord.
"Are you okay to talk about when you were diagnosed and what that day was like?," James Corden asked the "Married with Children" star on SiriusXM's "This Life of Mine with James Corden."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Yeah, it sucked," Applegate blatantly said before detailing a wide range of symptoms she felt before receiving her diagnosis.
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Christina Applegate remembered the day she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)
"For years and years and years, I'd have, like, some weird things … balance issues, speech issues," Applegate recalled. "My hands would shake sometimes, and I remember playing tennis – I played tennis a couple times a week, and my knee would go out."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}At the time, the "Dead to Me" actress chalked up the symptoms to being "dehydrated" or the temperature being "too hot" outside.
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"For years and years and years, I'd have, like, some weird things … balance issues, speech issues. My hands would shake sometimes, and I remember playing tennis – I played tennis a couple times a week, and my knee would go out."
"January of 2021, when my mom was diagnosed right before Christmas with cancer, I noticed that my toes got numb, and I ignored it and I still was hiking and then I'd be like, 'Whoa, that's, hmm. That's a weird muscle spasm,'" she said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Applegate, who now uses a cane for assistance, recalled having difficulty walking up stairs before receiving her MS diagnosis. (Amy Sussman/WireImage/Getty Images)
"Things just started to get weirder and weirder, and before I knew it, we were about to start shooting the last season of ‘Dead To Me,’ and by this time I was like, 'You guys, I can't even walk up the steps to my trailer.'"
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Applegate took her symptoms into consideration and scheduled a few tests, in addition to an MRI scan of her brain. She remembered being at work when her doctor called, needing to get on an urgent telehealth call to review her results.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I remember saying to them, ‘I have to leave. I have to go home and be there at seven,’ and they're like, ‘Well, we have like one more scene to do,’ and I just said, 'I can't. I gotta go home,'" Applegate said.
Christina Applegate believes she had undiagnosed MS during the first season of "Dead to Me," which premiered in 2019. (John Salangsang/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Once home, she "opened up my Zoom, and there he was, and he just looked at me, and he goes, 'I'm so sorry.'"
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ and he goes, 'Here's a picture of your brain. Sorry,' and there's like 30 lesions all over my brain and I went, 'No, please don't tell me this. Please don't tell me this,'" she said. "I had to call production. I said, 'You guys, it's f---ing MS,' and they're like, 'OK, we're shutting down for the week.'"
Applegate added, "That was it, and then we were just trying to figure out how to film and stuff, and we did. I mean, we finished it. It took us a long time, but we finished it. But yeah, I remember that moment like it was yesterday."
Applegate found fame in the late '80s as one of the stars of the sitcom "Married with Children." (Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)
She first revealed her diagnosis on X in 2021. "Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey," the "Anchorman" star wrote. "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."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In a separate post, she added, "As one of my friends that has MS said, 'We wake up and take the indicated action.' And that's what I do."