Christina Applegate says MS symptoms began 6 or 7 years before diagnosis: 'I didn't pay attention'

Christina Applegate got candid about the anger and grief she feels living with multiple sclerosis, the degenerative neurological disease in a new interview.

The actor sat down with Robin Roberts for ABC News on March 13.

“I’m never going wake up and go, ‘This is awesome.’ I’m just going to tell you that — like, it’s not going to happen,” Applegate said. “I wake up and I’m reminded of it every day. So, it’s never going to happen. But I might get to a place where I will function a little bit better.”

Applegate, 52, shared her preference for staying home and coping with MS in private.

“That’s kind of how I’m dealing with it, by not going anywhere,” she said. “Because I don’t want to do it. It’s hard.”

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that causes the immune system to attack the central nervous system, leading to communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body. Symptoms include muscle weakness, difficulty with coordination, including walking and standing, fatigue, muscle spasms, stiffness, speech problems, tremors and more.

Applegate’s symptoms began in 2021 while she was filming the final season of Netflix’s “Dead to Me.” She revealed her diagnosis on X, formerly Twitter, later that year.

“My symptoms had started in the early part of 2021, and it was literally just tingling on my toes,” Applegate told Roberts. “And by the time we started shooting in the summer of that same year, I was being brought to set in a wheelchair. Like, I couldn’t walk that far.”

When she confided to Selma Blair about difficulties walking, Blair urged Applegate to get screened for MS. Blair was diagnosed with the disease in 2018.

"She goes, 'You need to be checked for MS,' and I said, 'No.' I said, 'Really? The odds? The two of us from the same movie. Come on, that doesn’t happen,'" Applegate recalled. "(Selma) knew. If not for her, it could have been way worse."

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that causes the immune system to attack the central nervous system, leading to communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body. Symptoms include muscle weakness, difficulty with coordination, including walking and standing, stiffness, muscle spasms, fatigue, speech problems, tremors and more.

Speaking with the New York Times in November 2022, Applegate recalled that some of her early symptoms included losing balance, not playing as well at tennis, numbness and tingling.

Most people's symptoms start between the ages of 20 and 40, and the disease is three times more common in women than in men, according to the National Institutes of Health and the nonprofit National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

"They call it the invisible disease. It can be very lonely because it’s hard to explain to people," Applegate told Roberts. "I’m in excruciating pain, but I’m just used to it now."

Applegate shared with Roberts she thought she might have started experiencing symptoms up to seven years before she was diagnosed, as her legs would give out from underneath her while filming the first season of "Dead to Me."

"I really just kind of put it off as being tired, or I’m dehydrated, or it’s the weather," she said of her symptoms. "And then nothing would happen for, like, months, and I didn’t pay attention."

Applegate sat alongside Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who publicly shared her own MS diagnosis in 2016, for the interview. The pair are launching a podcast called "MeSsy," where the listener will feel like they're "eavesdropping" on their private conversations, Sigler said.

"That’s all it is, and to me, those are my favorite podcasts, where you feel like you just got to somehow listen in on a conversation with people," Sigler said. "There’s no format, no agenda, no questions that were coming, and it’s messy. It’s for sure a mess."

Applegate credited Sigler as one of the people who keeps her going as she lives with MS.

"She keeps me going because ... I’m flipping the bird all day long at this thing and I’m angry. I’m really, really pissed," Applegate said. "She’s like, 'OK, I have you, and you are going to be OK. Like you’re going to be OK.' And if not for her ... I really honestly don’t know."

Applegate added that she plans to open up like she never has before on the podcast.

"I’ve been playing a character called Christina for 40 years, who I wanted everybody to think I was because it’s easier," she said. "But this is kind of my coming out party. Like, this is ... the person I’ve been this whole time."

"I was kind of putting on a little act for everybody for so long because I just thought that was easier — be light, be funny ... don’t make people uncomfortable," she continued. "And I don’t care anymore."

Applegate has previously been open about how she's coping with her diagnosis.

When she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she attended the ceremony barefoot, explaining on social media that MS can make shoes feel uncomfortable and cause her to lose balance. It was the first time she'd been seen in public since her diagnosis.

Joining "The Kelly Clarkson Show" in December 2022, she used her trademark humor to explain what her new normal is like.

"My humor shield keeps me OK. But of course, down on the insides, you feel the things. I do it to kind of deflect and also make people not scared to be around me," she said. “When people see me now as a disabled person, I want them to feel comfortable that we can laugh about it."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com