Christina Applegate reveals she was misdiagnosed with MS

So, Christina Applegate has made a return to her own podcast, but the update she gave wasn’t the triumphant kind anyone wanted to hear. In fact, it’s left everyone a bit gobsmacked, if I’m honest. After thinking she’d been living with multiple sclerosis for years—and after the thing caused her to effectively end her acting career—it turns out she’s been misdiagnosed. Yes, really.

Applegate’s podcast, ‘MeSsy’, is back on air after a seven month pause, and she’s now revealed her MS diagnosis was wrong the whole time.

The Misdiagnosis Bombshell

Back in 2021, Applegate went public about her MS, explaining she’d started having mysterious health problems that matched every symptom on the MS checklist. You probably remember her Netflix series ‘Dead to Me’ (which wrapped up in 2022)—that was the last thing she did before retiring from acting to deal with it all. Now, after seeing another doctor, she’s been told she doesn’t have MS after all. But—and this is key—she’s still very much unwell.

On the podcast, Applegate sat down with Dr. Marwa Kaisey and spelled out just how bizarre this all feels. Her words from the episode reveal the weird sense of being back at the starting line after years of thinking she had the answer—just not the solution:

‘This may come as great news, but to me, I'm back at square one. It's hard to say that [my doctor] came into my room and she said, “Congratulations, you don't have MS.” 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. So I’m back at square one, that I don’t know what’s going on with me.’

Still No Answers—and Still Struggling

Applegate made it clear that, whatever she’s got, it walks and talks like MS: same symptoms, same severity. Only, apparently, not the real thing. She pointed out that there’s actually 'a pretty damn high number' of people who end up misdiagnosed with MS, which won’t be comforting for anyone avoiding web forums full of health horror stories.

• 2021: Applegate is diagnosed with MS after a series of unexplained health issues.
• 2022: 'Dead to Me' wraps, and she retires from acting.
• She becomes a high-profile advocate for MS awareness and support, talking openly about it in the press and on her podcast.
• 2024: After another round of medical checks, she’s told her diagnosis was wrong all along.

She’s not happy about being unexpectedly booted out of the MS club. She told Dr. Kaisey she felt like she’d failed people after speaking out about the condition so much, calling herself and the doctor 'the poster children for MS' now that she isn’t even officially a member. That sense of disappointment isn’t just about her advocacy work, though—it’s way more personal. She’s struggling not just physically (she still needs a wheelchair for anything more than minimal walking) but emotionally, saying that her life was cut off at the knees. In Applegate’s own words, once the doctor said she didn’t have MS, ‘nothing magical happened’—she still felt grim, still had all the same symptoms, and was left with the same unanswered question: what on earth is really wrong?