Christina Applegate opens up about MS pain: ‘I lay in bed screaming’

Christina Applegate talks about the pain she experiences from multiple sclerosis.

The 52-year-old “Married… with Children” alum shared her latest health update on the Nov. 5 episode of the “MeSsy” podcast, which she co-hosts with fellow actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS .

“Everyone has different options [the disease] “Show up,” Applegate said.

“I was lying in bed screaming,” she continued, attributing it to “the stabbing pain, the ache, the pressing.”

Applegate also described the new symptoms she had been feeling throughout her body.

“I sometimes can’t even pick up my phone because it’s now in my hands,” she explained. “So I’ll try to get my phone or my remote to turn on the TV or whatever and I can’t – sometimes I can’t even hold it. I can’t open bottles now.”

Applegate said that while it looked good from the outside, that was only because people couldn’t see what was going on inside.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks myelin, the tissue that covers nerve fibers in the central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health.

According to the NIH, MS can be unpredictable and cause varying symptoms with variable timing and frequency, from fatigue, numbness or tingling, weakness, dizziness and dizziness to the inability to write, speak or walk in the most severe cases. Individually, MS symptoms can vary and range from mild to extreme pain during a flare-up.

There is currently no known cure for MS.

Applegate, who was diagnosed with the chronic illness in 2021, told “Good Morning America” ​​in March 2024 that living with MS is “kind of hell.”

“They call it the invisible illness. “It can be very lonely because it’s hard to explain to people,” she said at the time. “I’m in terrible pain, but I’ve just gotten used to it now.”