Christina Applegate has given fans an update on her health. Photo / AP
Christina Applegate has given fans an update on her health. Photo / AP
Photos of Christina Applegate on the set of her hit Netflix series Dead To Me show the health struggles the actress is dealing with since her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis.
It comes after Applegate gave a candid new interview with The New York Times this week, in which she detailedthe effects the chronic auto-immune disease has had on her body. She said she was unable to walk without a cane and needed to have “her legs held up” by crew members.
“This is the first time anyone’s going to see me the way I am. I put on 40 pounds (18kg); I can’t walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that,” she told the outlet, explaining that she was resolved to finish filming Dead To Me despite her health difficulties.
“I had an obligation. The powers that be were like, ‘Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together [with previously recorded footage].’ I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms,’” she said.
She said that at first, she struggled to understand the gravity of her situation.
“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better,’” she said of her initial diagnosis. “There is no better.”
Christina Applegate is determined to finish filming for Netflix's Dead To Me. Photo / Netflix
Applegate first went public with her diagnosis in August last year, telling her fans via Twitter: “Hi friends. A few months ago I was diagnosed with MS. It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some a**hole blocks it.”
According to MS Australia, multiple sclerosis is “a condition of the central nervous system, interfering with nerve impulses within the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. It is characterised by sclerosis, a Greek word meaning scars.”
“These scars occur within the central nervous system and depending on where they develop, manifest into various symptoms.”
It’s not the first health battle Applegate has faced. In 2008 she had breast cancer and underwent surgery to have a double mastectomy.
One person who might know what Applegate is going through as she faces MS: Fellow actress Selma Blair, who was her co-star in the 2002 comedy hit The Sweetest Thing.
Blair revealed in 2018 that she had been diagnosed with MS – and has since publicly supported her friend and former colleague as she deals with the same illness.
Applegate told fans last week that she is preparing to re-enter public life, prepping for her first big public event since she was diagnosed.
“I have a very important ceremony coming up,” she wrote alongside a snap of five different walking sticks.
“This will be my first time out since [being] diagnosed with MS. Walking sticks are now part of my new normal,” she continued, telling fans to “stay tuned to see which ones make the cut for a week of stuff”.
