Christina Applegate Doesn’t Have MS, and She’s Not Celebrating

Speaking of chronic illness, can we talk about misdiagnosis for a minute?

In women’s health, everyone’s (rightly) up in arms about how long it takes to get a diagnosis. Across 770 diseases, women are diagnosed an average of four years later than men. For endometriosis, it’s 10 years ON AVERAGE, which is a full decade of being told it’s probably just a bad period.

But what about when it takes that long, and then the diagnosis ends up being wrong?

That’s where Christina Applegate is right now. She went public with an MS diagnosis in 2021 and became one of its most visible faces, even co-hosting a podcast, MeSsy, with fellow MS patient Jamie-Lynn Sigler (my doppelgänger, according to some). Then last week, she shared on the show that a doctor had told her, “Congratulations, you don’t have MS.” But she wasn’t celebrating. “This may come as great news,” she said, “but to me... I’m back at square one.” She’s not better. If anything, she’s gotten worse, and she still needs a wheelchair to get through a doctor’s appointment.

I feel for her, I really do. Misdiagnosis means starting all over again, and that really sucks. As someone who’s collected a few conditions of my own (PCOS, ADHD, Hashimoto’s), I know having a name for what’s wrong is more than just a label. It’s a treatment plan, a specialist who actually remembers you, a community of people who get it, an answer for your aunt who keeps asking at Thanksgiving. Lose the name and you lose all of that, in a body that still hurts.

So when she said she feels like she let everybody down, it broke my heart a little. Five years as the face of a disease she didn’t have, answering everyone else’s questions while still waiting for answers, and somehow she’s the one apologizing.

Somewhere out there is a doctor who will finally figure out what this actually is. I hope it’s soon, and I hope they skip the congratulations.