Christina Applegate has a theory about what may have caused her multiple sclerosis-like symptoms after revealing she was misdiagnosed.
“I had my double mastectomy in 2008 and I am way overdue for having them replaced,” Applegate, 54, said during the Tuesday, November 10, episode of her and Jamie Lynn Sigler’s “MeSsy” podcast.
The Dead to Me alum added, “And I swear over the last five years or whatever, I’ve thought, ‘What if they’re leaking and poisoning me?’ And then there was some study … about it presenting as MS. So that’s one that I will be looking into because it’s something I’ve thought about.”
Applegate underwent a double mastectomy after her August 2008 breast cancer diagnosis. She later underwent breast reconstruction surgery using saline expanders and implants.
In 2021, Applegate announced that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease that causes a breakdown of the protective covering of nerves, according to Mayo Clinic. Its primary symptoms include numbness, weakness, trouble walking and vision changes.
After five years of documenting her journey with what she believed to be MS, Applegate revealed last month that her diagnosis was incorrect.
“[My doctor] came into my room and said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS,’” she said during the October 20 episode of her podcast. “I was, like, not happy at all. Everybody else was so happy.”
Applegate continued, “I lost my job. I lost — I’m sorry. What do you say to someone who’s been living with this for six years — God, I’m so sorry — because it stopped my life. 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.”
The Married… With Children alum added that she felt like she “let everyone down.”
“It’s this weird feeling because I became this … the poster children for MS,” she said. “And everything I was doing. I had a reason. I had a f***ing 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 very confusing for me.”
Applegate is now gearing up for an “investigation” into her health battle.
“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better,” she said. “If anything, I’ve gotten worse. So I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me. And that’s going to be an online investigation that my doctors are going to be getting into just to find out what has been going on since 2021, why did this happen?”
