Christina Applegate’s MS misdiagnosis sparks discussion
Actor's experience not unique as diagnosing disease can be challenging
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Actor Christina Applegate's recent revelation of her MS misdiagnosis has sparked a discussion about the challenges of diagnosing the disease. (Photo from iStock)
- Actor Christina Applegate revealed that she had been misdiagnosed with MS.
- MS symptoms frequently overlap with those of other conditions, making accurate diagnosis challenging.
- Researchers continue to look for ways to improve diagnostic accuracy.
When Christina Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2021, she finally had an explanation for the symptoms that had been disrupting her life. The diagnosis also gave her a community where she could share her experiences, find support, and help others facing the same challenges.
Now, more than five years later, the actor shared an unexpected twist in her journey: her doctor informed her that she was misdiagnosed and she does not actually have MS. Yet, the debilitating symptoms that led to her diagnosis remain, leaving her facing a new set of questions about her health — and the loss of an identity and community she had come to rely on.
“This may come as great news, but to me it comes as like … I’m back at square one,” Applegate said on MeSsy, the MS-focused podcast that she cohosts with fellow actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS.
‘You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I’m better’
Applegate, who had taken about seven months away from the podcast to process the news, described feeling shocked rather than relieved when her doctor told her, “Congratulations, you don’t have MS.”
“You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I’m better,” she said on the first podcast episode discussing her misdiagnosis. “If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways. I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s office. I can’t walk from the car to the room.”
Applegate added that she’s “back at square one [where] I don’t know what’s going on with me.”
The diagnosis had given Applegate an explanation for what she was experiencing and a way to connect with other people. She and Sigler had built a friendship around their shared experiences, and the podcast became a place where they could talk openly about living with MS.
“That was my answer. It was my answer to everything that was going on … I leaned into you. I leaned into other friends. I leaned into the community. I felt safe because I had a place to talk,” Applegate said.
Now, she is also processing the feeling that she has somehow let that community down.
“It’s weird because I feel like I let everybody down,” she said. “I had a … reason as to why my day sucked every day. And now I don’t have a reason, and it’s very unnerving, and it’s really confusing for me.”
There’s no single definitive test for MS
Applegate’s experience is far from unique. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis pooled data from six studies involving more than 1,600 people with an MS diagnosis and estimated that 15% had been misdiagnosed — meaning about 1 in 7 people diagnosed with MS ended up not actually having the disease. The researchers found that the time taken to correct a misdiagnosis ranged from about four months to nearly 16 years.
A large part of the reason MS is often misdiagnosed is that there isn’t a single test that definitively confirms or rules out the disease. Instead, doctors rely on symptoms, MRI findings, spinal fluid results, and other tests to look for MS-like damage and rule out alternative explanations.
“The symptoms of MS, like tingling in your feet or numbness in your feet, for example, fatigue, brain fog, are very common in other things that are not MS. So, to distinguish MS from … its mimics can be challenging, and doctors, even with the best intentions, with the deepest looks at a case, can sometimes still get it wrong,” said Marwa Kaisey, MD, an associate professor of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who joined Applegate and Sigler for the second podcast episode after Applegate’s return.
Kaisey described research she conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles and Cedars-Sinai, where she found that nearly 1 in 5 patients referred to the clinics who had previously been diagnosed with MS did not actually have the disease. Many had been taking MS medications, in some cases for years.
To distinguish MS from from its mimics can be challenging, and doctors, even with the best intentions, with the deepest looks at a case, can sometimes still get it wrong.
Kaisey also acknowledged that for patients who have spent years understanding their lives through an MS diagnosis, discovering that it was wrong can mean losing more than a medical explanation.
“It’s really hard to be diagnosed with MS,” Kaisey said. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I found that it’s harder to be undiagnosed with MS.”
A diagnosis can become part of a person’s identity, she explained, while family members and friends rally around them. It may also underpin disability paperwork or have financial consequences.
“To suddenly take that away, I think it is earth-shattering. It’s life-changing in a huge way,” Kaisey said. And she noted it’s “a very tricky place to be in” when the diagnosis is withdrawn without a clear alternative to explain the patient’s symptoms.
Researchers continue to look for ways to improve diagnostic accuracy. For example, the criteria used to diagnose MS have been regularly updated as more is learned about the disease, with the most recent update coming in 2024.
The changes aim to help doctors diagnose MS faster and more accurately, enabling patients to receive treatments that can limit future disability early in the disease course. But for people whose diagnosis is uncertain, further evaluation may be needed. Doctors should continue investigating when tests results and symptoms do not fit existing criteria, even if another explanation is not immediately clear.
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