Her experience, while not the norm, is far from unusual, experts say.
Applegate disclosed the revelation on an episode of her podcast with Jamie Lynn Sigler, MeSsy, which centers on their lives with MS. (Sigler disclosed that she has relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, or RRMS, in 2016.) “In January of 2021, I had numbness in my toes, and that numbness grew to all of my legs,” Applegate recalled on the podcast. “And then the pain started.”
Applegate said that while everyone in her life was relieved, her reaction to the news was that she was “not happy at all,” noting, “You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of a sudden I’m better. I haven’t gotten better, Jamie. If anything, I’ve gotten worse in some ways. So I’m back at square one, that I don’t know what’s going on with me.”
From the USA Today article. I gather this is really common reaction for people with chronic or progressive illnesses, when they find out they don’t have the terrible thing they were misdiagnosed with. Like, everyone else is all “yay! no MS!” and the person who is still experiencing the symptoms that led to the misdiagnosis is like “ok, but I’m not suddenly healthy, and now I have to start over.” You can at least plan things when you know what you have.
Her symptoms sound really bad, too, and if there’s a treatment for what she does have, she’s not getting it.
Yeah, that’s the reason I was actually excited to be diagnosed with celiac even though I hate nothing more than having it. It sucks going like 15 years with severe issues but nobody being able to figure out what’s causing it
Every time a blood test comes back as “perfectly normal” I want to throw shit at people.
My kid is going through this right now. As a girl, she has the added benefit of “let’s try the pill and see if it helps!”. She has fatigue, heart palpitations and occasional chest tightness (EKG didn’t detect anything, bloodwork all normal with iron on a lower side but not bad). I wonder what would be the recommendation if she were a boy.
That’s how I was with pots
Literally what is happening to my partner right now. All the symptoms point to pots and it’s been going on for years but no one wants to diagnose her since her bloodwork is “healthy”. Meanwhile she can barely stand half the time and has to fight tooth and nail every time she needs a propananol refill
It’s incredibly common now and research suggests it could be caused by COVID. Anything to do with women and you get this sexist bullshit in medicine. I hope your partner can get her diagnosis soon, I wish you both the best of luck.
Yeah, that sucks! Good luck :(
There is no treatment for any neurodegenerative disease. There is no funding in the US for any neurodegenerative disease as of 2025.
There’s no treatment that restores function, but there are numerous treatments that slow or even stop disease progression with MS, which are much better than what was an available 15-20 years ago. A diagnosis at least gives hope of some ability to mitigate worsening symptoms.
Yeah, I know two people with MS, one has been diagnosed for a decade and a half and with medication she’s doing okay, one was diagnosed earlier this year, but is already receiving treatment intended to slow/stop progression.
There is no treatment that stops MS.
There is no treatment for any neurodegenerative disease
I don’t know how technically specific you’re trying to be here, but there are definitely treatments for some diseases that have major neurodegenerative effects, such as pernicious anemia.
For that one, the treatment is amazingly cheap (B12 injections), but most US doctors are decades behind in understanding and applying it.
US doctors are decades behind in understanding and applying it.
Sounds like YouTube medicine.
It’s not necessarily about treatment but about knowing what you have. If you know what you have and there’s a treatment, yay. If you know what you have and there’s no treatment, okay, you can try to learn how to come to terms with that. If you don’t know what you have… 乁( •_• )ㄏ
Pick any neurodegenerative disorder. No treatment restores neurons.
People love to think diagnosis = treatment that works. Rarely is that true.
The FDA and Pharma will sell you drugs, but none of the them actually work as promised.
Again, no one cares about funding biomedical research, no one cares when Trump cut it all. Unless the treatment for these diseases is fighter jets, no other government worldwide has stepped in to fill the large gap left by the NIH illegal cuts. The world has leaned on the US to foot this bill for over 50 years, and the US had a trillion dollar pharma industry to show for it. The entire planet spends about $60B a year to research all diseases, Trump cut $38B out of that. In 2 years, the Trump administration, along with G7 apathy, has irreversibly damaged medical research. You will see some drugs approved for a few years, then nothing. So, enjoy your PEPTIDES.
With NIH funding, there will be no biotech or pharma to commercialize new treatments. Pharma stopped doing basic research decades ago, now they are basically banks. The entire industry is headed to extinction.
$60B sound like a lot of money? a fraction of a single percent of healthcare spending.
I am unclear on the reason you’re telling me this.
There is no funding in the US for any neurodegenerative disease as of 2025.
Except Donald Trump, who has leeched federal funding to advertise himself.
After rounds of tests for a variety of conditions, her doctor found “almost 40” lesions on her brain and diagnosed her with MS, she said.
Now, five years later, Applegate said that, after analyzing brain scans with a “new technology,” her doctor told her she doesn’t have MS.
Estimates vary, but a recent meta-analysis found that around 15 percent of MS cases across studies were misdiagnoses.
Diagnostic tools are getting better. In 2025 the International Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials in Multiple Sclerosis updated its guidelines on how to diagnose MS to reflect recent advancements…
This whole story makes no sense.
- Patient diagnosed ~5 years ago.
- Disease presents similarly to several neurological disorders and has a known misdiagnosis rate between 5 and 20 percent (15% for the study mentioned in the article).
- Disease has seen developments in imaging and interpretation since original diagnosis.
- Prominent person announces they were misdiagnosed, but the symptoms persist.
It does if you read the article.
“Hey Chatty G!”
Who?
One of the leads of “Dead To Me” (among other things).
Also a blank for me, oh well.
I first saw her as the daughter in “Married: With Children”, but her imdb has 80+ entries.
“Dead To Me” just came to mind first because the production was affected by her diagnosis.
Just let go of the spotlight
Is… that going to help?
Do any comments help?
I wouldn’t think so? Not from random internet strangers, at least, I suppose.
