Christina Applegate returned to her podcast, “MeSsy,” on Tuesday with some shocking news: She was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
After taking a break from the podcast for seven months due to her health, Applegate tearfully shared the revelation in a two-part episode, saying that new technology led to the discovery. “This may come as great news, but to me, I’m back at square one,” she said. “It’s hard to say that [my doctor] came into my room and she said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS.'”
Applegate said that she was “not happy at all” about the news. “You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better … If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways,” she said. “So I’m back at square one, that I don’t know what’s going on with me.”
Applegate originally revealed that she had been diagnosed with MS in 2021, and retired from acting after the finale of her hit series “Dead to Me” the next year. Since then, she has become a fierce advocate for people with the disease — which causes damage to the central nervous system — and started the “MeSsy” podcast alongside “The Sopranos” star Jamie-Lynn Sigler as a way to share her experience and spread awareness.
Despite learning she had been misdiagnosed, Applegate said that her symptoms remain and her illness has now become a mystery. “I have every symptom of someone with MS. Every single one,” she said. “Now, we both know that there are many things that mirror MS — many different things.”
She added that “there’s a pretty damn high number of misdiagnoses with MS,” so this is not a rare occurrence. “It’s clear now that they’re finding something different,” Applegate continued. “Something else is going on.”
Applegate added that “it’s weird because I feel like I let everybody down” after becoming such a big advocate for the MS community. She added that she’s still in a “state of shock” and called the misdiagnosis a “mindfuck.”
“It’s this weird feeling because I became this — you and I, the poster children for MS,” she said. “I had a reason. I had a fucking reason as to why my day sucked every day. And now I don’t have a reason and it’s very unnerving and it’s really confusing for me.”
In the second part of the podcast episode, Applegate got emotional thinking about the past five years, and how confused she is now.
“I’ve gone through a great depression because of it. But I lost everything. I lost my job … It stopped my life,” she said. “I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s office. I can’t walk from the car to the room. I’m still in this. Nothing magical happened when she said, ‘You don’t have MS.’ Nothing magical happened.”
Listen to the full “MeSsy” episodes below.