{"id":2209053,"date":"2026-10-20T15:16:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2209053"},"modified":"2026-10-20T15:16:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:16:38","slug":"christina-applegate-says-she-was-wrongfully-diagnosed-with-ms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2209053","title":{"rendered":"Christina Applegate says she was wrongfully diagnosed with MS"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/46a8\/live\/08677710-cca3-11f1-bc2e-018d645d8d21.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"AFPAFP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Christina Applegate thought she was living with multiple sclerosis (MS) for five years, until recently discovering she had been given a wrong diagnosis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The actress, known for hits like Anchorman and Married With Children, said she was “not happy at all” about the news and in tears when she found out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better,” Applegate said in an episode of her Messy podcast released on Tuesday. “If anything, I’ve gotten worse.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The two-part episode, co-hosted by Jamie Sigler, ends a recent break she took to process the information. An investigation into what has been causing her debilitating symptoms – which she experiences daily – will begin next week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the podcast, Applegate said that “all of a sudden, a few years ago”, her doctor suggested ending her infusion treatment for MS to see how her body reacted. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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During the time off, her body did not respond in a way that would indicate she had MS. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Doctors then looked into her case further and concluded she did not have the autoimmune disease, which can cause muscle stiffness and problems with walking and talking. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“She came into my room and said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS,’ ” Applegate said, recalling the moment. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I was, like, not happy at all,” she continued. “Everybody else was so happy.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Misdiagnoses can be extremely distressing for people dealing with chronic illnesses, said Dr Michael Kornberg. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It becomes part of your identity,” the associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said, noting how there is a “comfort” in knowing what is happening inside your body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“To live with that for five years and then to be given a different diagnosis is really unsettling.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Applegate with her Dead to Me costar Linda Cardellini, carrying a cane as she receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2022<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Dr Marwa Kaisey, a guest on Tuesday’s episode, said MS misdiagnoses are not uncommon because symptoms are inconsistent and there is no universal testing. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s not like we have something like a pregnancy test that says ‘yes, you have it. No, you don’t,'” Kaisey said. “It’s a list of criteria.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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About 15 to 20 percent of patients diagnosed with MS do not actually have the disease, research suggests, according to Elena Grebenciucova, a neuroimmunology physician at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr Grebenciucova said the illness is typically diagnosed by finding a number of lesions – or white matter spots – with an MRI of the brain or spinal cord. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But she said those white matter spots can sometimes be signs of different health problems or illnesses, like migraines, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The neurology doctor said another health condition, a vitamin B12 deficiency, can also lead to neurological problems that closely mirror MS symptoms, including cognitive decline, tingling and balance issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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MS is a diagnosis of exclusion, with doctors combing through a patient’s medical history and many laboratory tests to make a determination, explained Dr Philip De Jager, the director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Because misdiagnoses can happen, Dr De Jager said that patients should seek second opinions. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Applegate was first diagnosed with MS in August 2021, after experiencing symptoms for a while, saying at the time: “It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps on going.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Years later, she described being in a “real depression” and said in a 2024 episode of her podcast that “I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She had said in a New York Times interview that she could not walk without a cane and used a wheelchair during filming of the Netflix series Dead To Me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cqlyel3wnxmxo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/46a8\/live\/08677710-cca3-11f1-bc2e-018d645d8d21.jpg”] AFP Christina Applegate thought she was living with multiple sclerosis (MS) for five years, until recently discovering she had been given a wrong diagnosis. The actress, known for hits like Anchorman and Married With Children, said she was “not happy at all” about the news and in tears when she found out. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2209053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2209053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2209053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2209053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2209053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}