Finding Your Voice Amid a Health Challenges
- Actress Christina Applegate, 52, says since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, she’s found her authentic voice that’s become untethered to restrictions set by her employers now that she’s barely working due to her diagnosis.
- Applegate has since become an outspoken advocate for herself and others living with multiple sclerosis, which is a disease that impacts the central nervous system, causing numbness or tingling in the limbs.
- Due to Applegate’s diagnosis, everyday activities such as showering and walking can be a daunting task as she copes with MS-related symptoms.
- Although there is no cure for multiple sclerosis, several treatment options help manage symptoms. Common tools MS patients use to improve their quality of life include wheelchairs, canes, leg braces, and some medical treatments called disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), which can slow the progression of the disease, according to some studies.
- Applegate is also a breast cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. She underwent a lumpectomy (removing the tumor and some surrounding tissue) followed by radiation for treatment.
Actress Christina Applegate, 52, says that multiple sclerosis has brought forth added struggle in her day-to-day life. The disease that impacts the central nervous system and causes numbness and tingling in the limbs also gave the “Married with Children” star a more authentic voice to speak her truth and empower others living with MS.
“I think, because I have a disability and I probably am not going to work too much more, I don’t care what I say…I can speak my own truth,” Applegate said while participating in the QVC “Age of Possibility” summit First for Women Magazine reports.
Living with Multiple Sclerosis
How Christina Copes With 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 to the body’s arms, legs, and other parts to function normally.
Applegate has been living with multiple sclerosis since August 2021. The disease impacts the central nervous system and can cause numbness or tingling in your limbs. The diagnosis came more than a decade after she dealt with breast cancer in 2008.
“With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day,” Applegate previously wrote in her Instagram post.
With the disease of MS, it’s never a good day,” Applegate explained to Vanity Fair.
She said everyday activities like taking showers, using stairs, and carrying things are all challenging.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society lays out 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 MS is diagnosed as until there is a second episode.
- Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS): The most common MS among the million people battling the disease in the US, 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 MS (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 MS (SPMS): This almost transitional form of MS progresses from RRMS to PPMS.
In addition to balance issues, numbness, and tingling in the limbs, as Applegate experienced, other common MS symptoms include vision and bladder control problems. Mood changes and mental and physical fatigue are other symptoms people living with MS may experience, according to the National Institute of Health.
Christina Is a Breast Survivor
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.
WATCH: What to know about dense breasts.
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. Connie Lehman, Chief of the Breast Imaging Division at Mass General Hospital, says dense breast tissue is more challenging to see through.
“The fatty breast tissue has a gray appearance, so an X-ray beam just runs right through it. However, the dense structures block the X-ray so that it looks white. Unfortunately, cancers also block the X-ray, so cancers look white. When you have a white cancer hiding in white, dense breast tissue, it can be missed,” Dr. Lehman explains.
Women with dense breasts are recommended a 3D mammogram, which can better see through dense breasts.
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 with 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.
Applegate then underwent six weeks of radiation, using high-energy beams aimed at the cancer cells to kill them.
During treatment, she then 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,” University of Maryland breast medical oncologist Dr. Kate Tkaczuk explains.
WATCH: Testing for the BRCA gene mutation.
The actress’ doctor gave her treatment options, but she ultimately opted for a double mastectomy, which removes both breasts to reduce her cancer risk. When a woman undergoes a double mastectomy, it is a personal and emotional decision that impacts how they feel 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.
WATCH: What happens during a double mastectomy.
“A double mastectomy typically takes about two hours for the cancer part of the operation, the removing of the tissue,” Dr. Elisa Port, Chief of Breast Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, tells SurvivorNet. “The real length, the total length of the surgery, can often depend on what type of reconstruction [a patient] has.”
Dr. Port adds 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.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.