Christina Applegate says she lived with multiple sclerosis years before diagnosis

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Christina Applegate has revealed she skilled multiple sclerosis (MS) signs for six or seven years before she was recognized.

The Dead to Me star, 52, opened up about dwelling with the immune dysfunction – which disrupts the central nervous system – in an interview with Good Morning America on Wednesday (13 March). Applegate was joined by her good friend and The Sopranos alum, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who was additionally recognized with MS in 2001.

Speaking to anchor Robin Roberts, the Married… with Children star detailed the signs she skilled lengthy before publicly announcing her MS diagnosis in 2021. “I probably had it for six or seven years, I think,” Applegate stated. “I noticed, especially the first season [of Dead to Me], we’d be shooting and my leg would buckle.

“I really just put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather. Then nothing would happen for months, and I didn’t pay attention. But when it hit this hard, I had to pay attention.”

The actor additionally seen “tingling on [her] toes” in early 2021. By the time she started capturing the ultimate season of the Netflix sequence, which ran from 2019 to 2022, Applegate stated she was being “brought to set in a wheelchair”.

Multiple sclerosis is a lifelong situation that may have an effect on the mind and spinal twine. The illness happens when the physique assaults myelin – the protecting sheath that covers nerve fibres – generally inflicting the breakdown of communication between the mind and different components of the physique, the Mayo Clinic states. According to the National MS Society, greater than 2.3 million folks worldwide have been recognized with the immune dysfunction, with girls being greater than two to a few occasions as probably as males to develop the illness.

“They call it the invisible disease. It can be very lonely because it’s hard to explain to people,” Applegate stated. “I’m in excruciating pain, but I’m just used to it now.”

Signs and signs of MS can fluctuate broadly between sufferers, with some folks experiencing mobility points, partial or full lack of imaginative and prescient, or stability points. While there isn’t a remedy for MS, there are a number remedies that may assist pace the restoration from assaults, modify the course of the illness, and handle signs.

Elsewhere in the course of the interview, she spoke candidly in regards to the drastic adjustments to her life since receiving her diagnosis – which got here following the encouragement of her former co-star, Selma Blair. Applegate credited her The Sweetest Thing co-star for urging her to be examined for MS, after Blair was additionally recognized with the autoimmune situation in 2018.

“She goes, ‘You need to be checked for MS,’ and I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Really? The odds? The two of us from the same movie. Come on, that’s not gonna be – that doesn’t happen,’” Applegate recalled, including of Blair: “She knew. If not for her, it could have been way worse.”

The Anchorman actor went on to explain dwelling with MS as “kind of hell” and admitted that she’s discovered herself “isolating” at residence as a method to cope with the challenges of the illness. “Right now, I’m isolating,” she advised Roberts. “That’s kind of how I’m dealing with it, is by, like, not going anywhere, because I don’t want to do it. It’s hard.”

When requested whether or not she’s nonetheless in a grieving course of, Applegate replied: “I’m never going to wake up and go, ‘This is awesome. It’s just not going to happen. I wake up and I’m reminded of it everyday… but I might get to a place where I function a little bit better.”

Meanwhile, Sigler was recognized with MS whereas starring as Meadow Soprano within the hit HBO drama sequence when she was simply 20 years previous. The two buddies are launching a podcast collectively, titled MeSsy, on 19 March.