What’s Next for Christina Applegate After MS Misdiagnosis

As a result, Applegate began treatment in hopes of preventing new symptoms from developing. “I’m doing all the infusions, which as we know, plays havoc on your body,” she noted on the podcast. “Did that for years.”

But a few years ago, Applegate continued, her doctor decided to stop the infusions and monitor her B cells. When her levels didn’t change, she explained, her medical team re-examined her diagnosis.

Remembering how her doctor “came into my room and she said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS,'” Applegate said she didn’t feel the same relief those around her did.

“I was not happy at all,” the Dead to Me star shared. “Everybody else was so happy.”

Mainly because her symptoms—which she’s shared have included excruciating chronic pain, effects to her mobility, incontinence, fatigue and others that have led to several hospitalizations over the years—haven’t gone away.

“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I’m better,” she told Sigler, who was diagnosed with MS about 25 years ago. “I haven’t gotten better, Jamie. If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways. So, I’m back at square one that I don’t know what’s going on with me.”

After openly detailing her health battle and feeling like one of the “poster children for MS,” Applegate admitted she feared that she let people down.

“Everything that I was doing, it’s like I had a reason,” the Married…With Children actress shared. “I had a f–king reason as to why my day sucked every day. And now I don’t have a reason. It’s very unnerving and it’s really confusing for me.”

Still, Applegate isn’t giving up on her search for answers. The Anchorman alum noted she’s still doing physical therapy three times a week and that she and her medical team are going to “start the investigation” into what could be causing her symptoms.

But the toll has been more than physical as Applegate has been honest about how the diagnosis has affected her mentally and emotionally.

“Of course, I’ve gone through great depression because of it,” the 54-year-old shared. “But I lost everything. I lost my job.”

Fighting back tears, she added, “I get really emotional because it stopped my life. I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s offices. 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.'”

And Applegate knows that, in many ways, her journey is just beginning, noting her and her neurologist are now “starting from scratch basically to figure out what’s going on.”

As she navigates this new path, read what Applegate has shared about her health over the years.