Living With MS: Christina Applegate On Coping With Chronic Pain
- Christina Applegate, 52, has admitted to suffering such terrible pain throughout her multiple sclerosis battle—a serious disease of the brain and central nervous system that can lead to permanent disability, which she’s been battling since 2021—that she’s often left “screaming” in bed.
- The “Married with Children” star was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in August 2021. The disease impacts the central nervous system and can cause numbness or tingling in your limbs.
- Applegate also bravely battled breast cancer after a 2008 diagnosis. She underwent a double mastectomy (removal of both breasts) to help treat the disease.
- The actress is certainly is not alone when it comes to living with chronic pain. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% of Americans are living day-to-day with chronic pain.
The beloved actress and breast cancer survivor, who has been battling MS since 2021, shared insight into her extreme pain on the “MeSsy with Christina Applegate & Jamie-Lynn Sigler” podcast this week, in an episode titled, “The Beauty of the Invisible Disease with Rory Kandel.”
Read MoreView this post on Instagram
Before Applegate spoke more in depth about her struggle with pain, Kandel admitted her MS is “manifesting as pain,” explaining further, “It feels like I have knives in my stomach.
“Like, I’ll be laying in bed, and I wake up, and I physically can’t turn from side to side.”
After Applegate chimed in with agreeing “It’s the worst,” Kandel then asked, “Do you feel like that?” to which the “Dead To Me” actress replied, “Every single day of my life.”
As for how Applegate feels, she explained, “I lay in bed screaming. Jamie and I have different. Everybody has different ways of it showing up. I lay in bed screaming. Like, the sharp pains, the ache, that squeezing.
“I can’t even pick up my phone sometimes because now it’s traveled into my hands, so I’ll, like, try to go get my phone or get my remote to turn on the TV or sometimes, I can’t even hold them. I can’t open bottles now.”
After Kandel noted, “But we look fine,” Applegate said the reason is “because it’s the beauty of the invisible disease.”
View this post on Instagram
Applegate, who previously battled breast cancer, also said the amount of pain she suffers from does vary, adding, “I just lay in bed all the time. I mean, I worked for almost 50 years, so I’m like, I’m kind of okay with it.”
Referring to how she sometimes feels when she gets up in the morning, she likened it to “the floor is lava.”
She explained, ” I put my feet on the ground and they’re hurting, like, extraordinarily bad to the touch. I was like, yep. Gonna get back in my bed and pee in my diaper because I don’t feel like walking all the way to the damn bathroom. I actually don’t lay here and pee in my bed diaper. That’s just a joke.
“But it’s like it’s so freaking painful and so hard and so awkward.”
More On Living With Multiple Sclerosis
- ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ Is Inspiration for Anybody With Multiple Sclerosis
- Sisterhood of Support– Shannon Doherty, Selma Blair & Sarah Michelle Gellar Together During Cancer, MS, and Life
- Multiple Sclerosis and Diet: Can the Paleo Diet Manage MS?
- Why Is Actress Selma Blair Getting Chemotherapy For Multiple Sclerosis?
- ‘Floored by…Kindness’: MS Fighter Selma Blair Remembers Going Public with Her Illness & Honors Americans With Disabilities Act Anniversary
Coping Mechanisms for Pain Management
Applegate is certainly is not alone when it comes to living with chronic pain, something she’s been dealing with as she lives with MS. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% of Americans are living day-to-day with chronic pain.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is conducting basic pain research to develop strategies and potential medications to better manage pain. The research focuses on key areas including facial pain and how – in some cases – protein increases sensitivity to painful and nonpainful stimuli.
RELATED: Clinical Trials Can be Life-Saving for Some
Research involving mice indicates that rodents with high levels of Cdk5 (a type of protein called cyclin-dependent kinase 5) showed larger calcium surges, indicating that their pain responses were intensified.
“This heightened pain sensitivity is similar to a condition called allodynia. Allodynia causes pain in response to something that isn’t typically painful. The research team was able to reduce pain signaling in those oversensitive mice by blocking their Cdk5,” NIH Distinguished Investigator Dr. Kenneth M. Yamada explained.
Other areas of research include learning how sound reduces pain and ongoing clinical trials studying pain perception and lower back pain.
Of course, pain management comes with risks especially when powerful painkillers such as opioids are involved. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends seeking treatment opinions that don’t involve opioids to treat pain when viable.
Medicines like over-the-counter painkillers including acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and naproxen have fewer side effects. Other alternatives to opioids include physical therapy and exercise.
Christina Applegate’s MS Journey
Multiple sclerosis is a potentially disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord. The disease 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 send messages to arms, legs, and other parts of the body to function normally.
Applegate began experiencing symptoms of the condition long before she had answers. She actually said she felt off balance during a dance sequence that occurred way back in season one of her dark comedy “Dead to Me.” She later noticed her aptitude for tennis started to fail.
“I wish I had paid attention,” she previously told The New York Times. “But who was I to know?”
SurvivorNetTV Presents: Defying All Odds A World-Renowned Doctor’s Incredible Journey Through MS
It took several years of worsening tingling and numbness in her extremities before her diagnosis arrived while on set. This life-altering realization wouldn’t stop Applegate from finishing her portrayal of Jen Harding, but she did need a break. Production of the final season ceased for about five months as she began treatment.
“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better,’” Applegate said. “And there is no better. But it was good for me. I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me. So I needed that time.”
Applegate admits she’ll never fully “accept” her condition, but she did learn how to work with it. And she’s previously talked about how the show was a cathartic outlet and safe space.
“I had an obligation to Liz [Feldman] and to Linda [Cardellini], to our story,” she said of the show’s writer and her co-star respectively. “The powers that be were like, ‘Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together.’ I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.’”
Applegate wasn’t able to work as hard or as long or in the heat without her body giving out, but she found pride in her self-sufficiency. With the help of some adjustments to the schedule, she powered through. Nicole Vassell, a writer for The Independent, says other programs should learn from the way Applegate’s “physical changes [were] seamlessly incorporated into the show.”
“This is the first time anyone’s going to see me the way I am,” Applegate said. “I put on 40 pounds; I can’t walk without a cane. I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that.”
However, on the most recent “MeSsy” podcast episode, Applegate revealed she has since lost those 40 pounds naturally, without any anti-obesity drugs. She said, someone jokingly, that she lost that weight by dealing with stomach issues associated with the medicine she takes amid her MS battle.
Understanding 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 send messages to the arms, legs, and other parts of the body to function normally.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society outlines the different types of multiple sclerosis:
- Clinically isolated syndrome (CIS): This 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 is an almost transitional form of MS that 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.
Treating Multiple Sclerosis
There is no cure for MS, but MS warriors battling the disease do have methods to manage their 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).
A study in American Family Physician found DMTs “has been shown to slow disease progression and disability; options include injectable agents, infusions, and oral medications targeting different sites in the inflammatory pathway.”
While chemotherapy is widely known as a cancer treatment that uses drugs to kill cancer cells, it is also effective at slowing down or stopping disease activity in MS. Applegate’s actress Selma Blair previously underwent chemotherapy as part of her treatment for MS.
Questions for Your Doctor
If you are diagnosed with MS or may be concerned you have the chronic disease due to symptoms you’re experiencing, consider asking your doctor the following questions.
- Although there’s no cure for MS, which treatment option to manage my symptoms do you recommend for me?
- Are there any potential side effects of MS treatment?
- What if the treatment to manage symptoms doesn’t work?
- Will exercise or therapy help my symptoms?
- Are there any MS support groups you recommend to help me cope?
Mental Health: Understanding the Three Wellsprings of Vitality
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
