Actress Christina Applegate Reveals Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis, Asks for Privacy as She "Goes Through This Thing"

Christina Applegate revealed via social media that she's been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The Dead To Me actor, 49, took to Twitter to share her health update with her fans. "Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS."

"It's been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition," she continued. "It's been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some asshole blocks it."

In a second Tweet, the Vacation star shared: "As one of my friends that has MS said 'we wake up and take the indicated action'. And that's what I do." She then proceeded to ask for privacy as she goes "through this thing."

Medical News Today states that MS is an autoimmune disease "that affects the central nervous system, which is the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. This can lead to a wide range of symptoms throughout the body." Having said that, it is not possible to predict how MS will progress in a person who has been diagnosed with it. According to the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), 250,000–350,000 people in the United States are living with MS.

According to PEOPLE, this isn't the first time the Emmy Award winner has had to deal with medical issues.

In 2008, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which led to her undergoing a double mastectomy. Then, in 2017, she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed – as a precautionary measure to prevent cancer, since she is a carrier of the BRCA1 gene mutation that causes a heightened risk of developing cancer – surgery-induced menopause in 2018, and a long battle with insomnia.

But through it all, she remained very open about her journey with her fans, because she felt like she owed it to them to know what she was going through. "If you do have a voice to do it, which we [as actors] are fortunate to have this platform to be like, 'I am just like you, I can't sleep, I feel like crap a lot of the time because of this, but I want you to feel okay with it and not feel shame about it and get information about it so that you can have a better quality of life,'" she told PEOPLE, back in 2018. "And the same goes for my battle with cancer."

This was a huge thing for the mom-of-one because initially, she was very hesitant to go public with her breast cancer diagnosis. "When I first came out about my breast cancer I didn't want to talk about it, but I had to because young women were getting it, and people weren't understanding that," Applegate said.

"They weren't understanding that women that were 36 were getting breast cancer, or women that were 28 were getting breast cancer, and they were opting not to get MRIs when they were high-risk because of the cost. My activism came out." Her daughter Sadie, 10, was also a reason for her to be open about her journey.

“That was why I talked about my ovaries because that was also something very private but I just found myself like, yeah, I guess you should know that I took my ovaries and fallopian tubes out and I am going through menopause,” she says. “Let’s talk about that, let’s talk about what that’s like at 40-something, to be going through that, and know that you’re not alone.”

References:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/37556#what-is-ms

https://people.com/health/christina-applegate-health-struggles-cancer/

https://people.com/health/christina-applegate-reveals-multiple-sclerosis-diagnosis/

https://twitter.com/1capplegate/status/1424990463568670723  

Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer