Navigating the Physical and Emotional Toll of a Multiple Sclerosis
“Married with Children” star Christina Applegate’s new memoir reveals how her 2021 MS diagnosis rapidly stripped away her mobility within a matter of months, bringing burning nerve pain, numbness, and daily physical challenges.
She describes falling multiple times, losing the ability to hike, run, or play tennis within six months, and navigating symptoms that intensify under stress. Her condition has also impacted her daughter, Sadie, who has had to adjust to a “new version” of her mom.
Although there is no cure for multiple sclerosis, several treatment options help manage symptoms. Common tools multiple sclerosis patients use to improve their quality of life include wheelchairs, canes, leg braces, and disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), which can slow disease progression.
The “Married with Children” star also bravely battled breast cancer after a 2008 diagnosis. She underwent a double mastectomy (removal of both breasts).
Dr. Elisa Port, Chief of Breast Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, explains that “a double mastectomy typically takes about two hours for the cancer part of the operation, the removal of the tissue. The real length… can often depend on what type of reconstruction [a patient] has.”
“Married with Children” star Christina Applegate, 54, spent more than a year revisiting the triumphs and heartbreaks that have shaped her life while writing her new memoir, “You With the Sad Eyes.”
Among the chapters that linger most deeply is her 2021 diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) — a chronic condition that can cause numbness, tingling, and profound fatigue.
She writes that MS altered her daily life almost immediately, stripping away the ease and mobility she once took for granted.
“My knees feel like I have bricks attached to them, heavy and painful,” she shares in the book, capturing the physical weight and emotional reckoning that came with the diagnosis.
Christina Applegate attends the 25th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards on January 12, 2020, in Santa Monica, California (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics’ Choice Association)
“My skin feels like it’s got third-degree, fourth-degree, fifth-degree burns. Something is constantly stabbing at my ankles. When I put my feet down on the ground when I wake up, it feels as if the floor is made of needles, yet I can’t feel them because my feet are completely numb. Somehow it manages to be both things at once.”
The “Dead to Me Actress” adds that activities she once did with ease, such as hiking, running, and playing tennis, became nearly impossible in a span of six months after her MS diagnosis.
“For people who don’t understand MS., when we get stressed or upset, our symptoms get worse. Something happened to me on Friday, and I fell like 5 times,” Applegate said in an Instagram post.
Christina Applegate at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards with her daughter Sadie Grace (Getty Images)
Sadie, now 15, has had to adjust to a new version of her mother—one who can no longer dance, run, or move with ease. “Mommy can’t do all the things she was once able to do,” Applegate explained. “It’s like losing the mom she had… and when multiple sclerosis came about, she was stoic about it. Then I see how she looks at me.”
“My memoir is about survival and all the things that I never told anyone: the good stuff, the terrible stuff, the hilarious stuff, the shitty, sad stuff. Things some of my closest friends don’t know,” Applegate said in her first Instagram video blog.
Helping Multiple Sclerosis Patients with Resources
Applegate’s Health Journeys With Multiple Sclerosis and Breast Cancer
Christina Applegate has been candid about the physical and emotional toll of living with multiple sclerosis, a battle she’s faced since her diagnosis in August 2021. The disease came more than a decade after another major health fight — her battle with breast cancer in 2008.
LOS ANGELES, CA – JULY 19: Actress Christina Applegate speaks onstage during Dizzy Feet Foundation’s Celebration Of Dance Gala at The Music Center on July 19, 2014, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images for Dizzy Feet Foundation)
“With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day,” Applegate previously wrote on Instagram.
“Having MS f—ing sucks… You just have little s— days,” she added, summing up the relentless grind that defines her experience.
Applegate has shared that even the most basic tasks — showering, climbing stairs, and carrying objects — have become daunting. While she’s learned to manage many of her symptoms over time, multiple sclerosis remains a chronic condition, one that she acknowledges she’ll live with for the rest of her life.
Living with Incurable Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis causes the immune system to attack cells that form the protective sheath that covers nerve fibers in the spinal cord. The disruption leads to communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body.
Once the protective barrier is damaged, the spinal cord struggles to communicate with the body’s arms, legs, and other parts to function normally.
There is no cure for M.S., but people living with multiple sclerosis may find tools to help manage their symptoms.
Common tools M.S. patients use to improve their quality of life include wheelchairs, canes, leg braces, and some medical treatments called disease-modifying therapies (DMTs).
Applegate’s breast cancer journey began in April 2008, when she was just 36 years old. In the early weeks, she kept the diagnosis private, continuing to work without revealing her struggle.
“I went through five weeks of work without telling anyone that this was going on in my life,” she shared in a CNN interview.
Applegate explained that she had dense breasts—an important detail that affected the accuracy of routine screenings. “He suggested that I get an MRI,” she said, recalling her doctor’s recommendation after a mammogram.
WATCH: What to know about dense breasts.
Dense breast tissue poses unique challenges for detection.
“The fatty breast tissue has a gray appearance, so an X-ray beam just runs right through it. But the dense structures block the X-ray. And so that looks white,” said Dr. Connie Lehman, Chief of the Breast Imaging Division at Mass General Hospital.
“Unfortunately, cancers also block the X-ray, so they also look white. When you have white cancer hiding in white, dense breast tissue, it can be missed,” Dr. Lehman explained.
Because of this, experts recommend 3D mammograms for those with dense breasts. Applegate’s MRI revealed troubling signs. “They found some funky things going on [in one breast],” she said. A biopsy confirmed the presence of early-stage breast cancer.
WATCH: Understanding Early-Stage Breast Cancer
Early-stage breast cancer is characterized by a small tumor confined to the breast, with no signs of spread to the lymph nodes, making it highly treatable.
Standard treatment for this early stage often includes surgery to remove the cancer, with the possibility of radiation therapy to reduce the risk of recurrence further. The surgical approach may involve either a lumpectomy, which removes the tumor while preserving most of the breast, or a mastectomy, which involves the removal of one or both breasts as a preventive measure.
Despite the favorable prognosis, fear lingered. Applegate focused her energy on treatment, undergoing a lumpectomy followed by six weeks of targeted radiation therapy. Research shows that lumpectomy with radiation is equally effective as mastectomy in preventing recurrence for early-stage cases.
During treatment, a deeper concern surfaced—Applegate learned she carried the BRCA gene mutation, heightening her risk for breast and ovarian cancer. “That sort of changed everything for me,” Applegate explained.
WATCH: Testing for the BRCA gene mutation.
“Radiation was something temporary, and it wasn’t addressing the issue of this coming back or the chance of it coming back in my left breast. I sort of had to kind of weigh all my options at that point,” Applegate said.
Inherited BRCA mutations give each child of a carrier a 50% chance of inheriting the variant. Dr. Kate Tkaczuk, a breast medical oncologist at the University of Maryland, notes, “Patients with a strong family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer or patients who have a diagnosis of a couple of breast cancers in their lifetime will be at higher risk.”
Faced with the reality of recurrence, Applegate chose a preventative double mastectomy—an emotionally charged decision aimed at long-term peace of mind.
“It just seemed like, ‘I don’t want to have to deal with this again. I don’t want to keep putting that stuff in my body. I just want to be done with this,’ and I was just going to let them go,” Applegate explained.
In a gesture of remembrance, Applegate staged what she called her “first and last nude photo shoot” before surgery. As she prepared to enter the operating room, emotion overwhelmed her. “The floodgates just opened up, and I lost it…” she recalled.
Dr. Tkaczuk explains that when women realize that their body is no longer the way they always remembered it to be after breast cancer surgery, it can affect their psyche. “It’s also a part of you that’s gone, so you go through a grieving process and a mourning process,” Dr. Tkaczuk said.
Dr. Elisa Port, Chief of Breast Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, offered insight into the procedure.
“A double mastectomy typically takes about two hours for the cancer part of the operation, the removal of the tissue. The real length… can often depend on what type of reconstruction [a patient] has,” Dr. Port explained.
Applegate is playing Jen Harding in the Netflix series “Dead to Me.”
Most women opt for reconstructive surgery, which can take two to three hours with implants or far longer if using one’s own tissue, such as from the abdomen.
Since overcoming her battle, Applegate has become a vocal advocate for early screening and education—turning her experience into a call to action for women everywhere.
Applegate’s breast cancer journey began in April 2008 at just 36 years old.
“I went through five weeks of work without telling anyone that this was going on in my life,” she said during a CNN interview.
Applegate said she had dense breasts and would need more thorough examinations for her routine mammogram screenings.
“He suggested that I get an MRI,” the actress said.
Dr. Lehman says dense breast tissue is more challenging to see through.
Christina Applegate is pictured with her Hollywood star (Getty Images)
When Applegate underwent an MRI screening, something was off.
“They found some funky things going on [in one breast],” she said.
A biopsy confirmed her diagnosis, but luckily, the cancer was caught early. Despite her prognosis, she was still very concerned about her diagnosis.
She then turned her worry into determination, and she focused her efforts on beating the cancer. She underwent a lumpectomy, which is a procedure that removes the tumor and some of the surrounding tissue.
For early-stage breast cancer, studies have shown that lumpectomy plus radiation is as effective a treatment in preventing breast cancer recurrence as mastectomy (the removal of the breast).
Applegate then underwent six weeks of radiation, using high-energy beams aimed at the cancer cells to kill them.
During treatment, she learned she tested positive for the BRCA gene, increasing her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.
“That sort of changed everything for me. Radiation was something temporary, and it wasn’t addressing the issue of this coming back or the chance of it coming back in my left breast. I sort of had to kind of weigh all my options at that point,” she explained.
The harmful variant of BRCA1 or BRCA2 is inherited from either or both of your parents. So, each offspring of a parent who carries the mutation has a 50% chance of inheriting it.
“Patients with a strong family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer or patients who have a diagnosis of a couple of breast cancers in their lifetime will be at higher risk,” Dr. Tkaczuk explains.
The actress’s doctor gave her treatment options, but she ultimately opted for a preventative double mastectomy, which removes both breasts to reduce cancer risk. When a woman undergoes a double mastectomy, it is a personal and emotional decision that impacts how they feels about themselves.
“It just seemed like, ‘I don’t want to have to deal with this again. I don’t want to keep putting that stuff in my body. I just want to be done with this,’ and I was just going to let them go,” she explained.
Just before the procedure, Applegate said she staged her “first and last nude photo shoot” so she could remember her breasts. Just before the surgery began, Applegate admitted she began to cry.
“The floodgates just opened up, and I lost it…It’s also a part of you that’s gone, so you go through a grieving process and a mourning process,” Dr. Tkaczuk explained.
“A double mastectomy typically takes about two hours for the cancer part of the operation, the removal of the tissue,” Dr. Port told SurvivorNet in a previous chat. “The real length, the total length of the surgery, can often depend on what type of reconstruction [a patient] has.”
Dr. Port added that most women opt to have some reconstruction. The length of these surgeries can vary. When implants are used, the procedure can take two to three hours (so the total surgery time would be around five hours). There is also the option to take one’s own tissue (usually from the belly area) and transfer it into the breast area, but this is a much longer procedure.
Since Applegate’s breast cancer journey began, she’s advocated for women to undergo the necessary screenings for early detection.
Living with Incurable Multiple Sclerosis
A study in American Family Physician found that DMTs “have been shown to slow disease progression and disability; options include injectable agents, infusions, and oral medications targeting different sites in the inflammatory pathway.”
WATCH: SurvivorNetTV Presents: Defying All Odds – A World-Renowned Doctor’s Incredible Journey Through MS
Research published in Frontiers in Neurology last year says autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) (also called bone marrow transplantation, with autologous meaning a patient’s own cells) used for multiple sclerosis therapy helps “reset the immune system.” Several studies and clinical trials using AHSCT have shown promise.
“In a meta-analysis of published studies using AHSCT for M.S. treatment, the pooled estimated transplant-related mortality was 2.1%, the two-year disease progression rate was 17.1%, the five-year progression rate of 23.3%, and a pooled 83% of patients had no evidence of disease activity at two years. Patients who had the most benefit and the least mortality rate were patients with relapsing-remitting M.S. (RRMS).”
Additional research published by NEJM Journal Watch says that AHSCT helps MS patients reduce relapses better than other forms of MS treatment.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society outlines the different types of multiple sclerosis:
Clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) is when an individual experiences a single neurological episode lasting 24 hours or less. CIS is what M.S. is diagnosed as until there is a second episode.
Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS): The most common M.S. among the million people battling the disease in the U.S., RRMS is marked by sudden flare-ups, new symptoms, or worsening of symptoms and cognitive function. The condition will then go into remission for some time before reemerging with no known warning signs.
Primary progressive M.S. (PPMS): These individuals have no flare-ups or remission, just a steady decline with progressively worse symptoms and an increasing loss of cognitive and body functions.
Secondary progressive M.S. (SPMS): This is an almost transitional form of M.S. that progresses from RRMS to PPMS.
Questions for Your Doctor
If you are diagnosed with MS or are concerned you have the chronic disease due to symptoms you’re experiencing, consider asking your doctor the following questions.
Although there’s no cure for MS, which treatment option do you recommend to manage my symptoms?
Are there any potential side effects of MS treatment?
What if the treatment to manage symptoms doesn’t work?
Will exercise or therapy help my symptoms?
Are there any MS support groups you recommend to help me cope?
