- Christina Applegate revealed she was misdiagnosed and does not have MS.
- She experienced MS-like symptoms since 2021, became mostly bedridden, and felt worse after learning of the misdiagnosis.
- Learning she did not have MS plunged her into depression and left her without an explanation for ongoing symptoms.
- MS misdiagnosis occurs in 5 to 18 percent of cases; women face higher risk of diagnostic delays and dismissal of symptoms.
Since publicly sharing her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021, Christina Applegate has been outspoken about the reality of living with the disease. Her March 2026 memoir chronicled her diagnosis and struggles with being mostly confined to her bed, and she co-hosts the MeSsy podcast alongside Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who was diagnosed with MS in her early 20s but didn't publicly reveal the news until 2016. On Tuesday, Applegate made a stunning revelation: She was misdiagnosed and does not have MS.
On a two-part episode of MeSsy released Tuesday, the Emmy Award-winning actress shared that a doctor recently told her: "Congratulations. You don't have MS."
"I was not happy at all," Applegate said. "I had every symptom of someone with MS. Every single one."
She said on the podcast that she started seeking medical attention in January 2021 after experiencing numbness in her toes that spread to the rest of her legs and turned into pain. Eventually, after undergoing a series of tests, she was diagnosed with MS in 2021. "I felt like, 'OK, I have an answer...what a great thing.'"
But learning of her misdiagnosis put her in a "great depression," she said on the podcast. "You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I’m better,” she told Sigler. "If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways." She said she feels like she's "back at square one."
So what is Christina Applegate suffering from?
“It’s weird because I feel like I let everybody down,” Applegate said. “It’s this weird feeling because I became this — you and I — the poster children for MS." Even though dealing with the disease has been painful, at least she had an explanation for her symptoms. “And now I don’t have a reason. It’s very unnerving, and it’s really confusing for me.”
Applegate said on the podcast that she and her doctors are still working to figure out what's been causing her health problems. "We both know that there are many things that mirror MS — many different things.” She added, “It’s clear now that they’re finding something different. Something else is going on.”
Is MS misdiagnosis common?
It might surprise you to learn that as many as five to 18 percent of MS diagnoses are incorrect, which a 2024 review attributed in part to over-reliance on MRIs and misapplication of MS diagnostic criteria. There's also no single test for the disease. What makes getting a correct diagnosis more complicated is that many common MS symptoms can be symptoms of other conditions.
Women are also more likely to receive an incorrect medical diagnosis than men in general — which may not come as a shock if you know how women have been historically excluded from medical research (a topic Katie Couric will be focusing on in her upcoming documentary, HORMONAL!). Women can, unfortunately, be dismissed by medical professionals, and their issues are not always taken seriously due to biases. We also know that some conditions, like heart attacks, often present differently in women than men, which can cause healthcare professionals to miss symptoms.
In fact, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis are one of the top conditions that are misdiagnosed or diagnosed much later in women. Women are more likely to have an autoimmune disease — as many as four out of five people with an autoimmune disease are women — but less likely to be diagnosed promptly. A study published earlier this month found that women were significantly more likely than men to take longer to be diagnosed, require more doctor's visits, and have their symptoms be dismissed as psychiatric or psychosomatic reasons.
