Most people would celebrate hearing they don’t have a chronic disease. Christina Applegate cried. The actress thought she was living with multiple sclerosis for five years, until she recently discovered she had been given the wrong diagnosis.

Tears, Not Joy

Applegate, known for Anchorman and Married With Children, said she was “not happy at all” about the news and was in tears when she learned it. “You don’t get misdiagnosed and then all of the sudden I’m better,” she said in an episode of her Messy podcast released Tuesday. “If anything, I’ve gotten worse.”

Back to Square One

The two-part episode, co-hosted by Jamie Sigler, ends a recent break she took to process the information. An investigation into what is causing her debilitating daily symptoms will begin next week. “I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me,” she said.

How the Truth Surfaced

Applegate said that “all of a sudden, a few years ago,” her doctor suggested stopping her MS infusion treatment to see how her body would react. During the time off, her body did not respond in a way that would indicate MS. Doctors then looked further into her case and concluded she did not have the autoimmune disease, which can cause muscle stiffness and problems with walking and talking.

“She came into my room and said, ‘Congratulations, you don’t have MS,’” Applegate recalled. “I was, like, not happy at all. Everybody else was so happy.”

A More Common Mistake Than Patients Realize

Dr. Marwa Kaisey, a guest on the episode, said MS misdiagnoses are not uncommon because symptoms are inconsistent and there is no universal test. One in five people who were told they had MS “didn’t actually have it,” she said.

“It’s not like we have something like a pregnancy test that says ‘yes, you have it. No, you don’t,’” Kaisey said. “It’s a list of criteria.”

The Road So Far

Applegate was first diagnosed with MS in August 2021, after experiencing symptoms for a while. She said then: “It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps on going.”

Years later, she described being in a “real depression,” and said in a 2024 podcast episode: “I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.” She has also told The New York Times that she could not walk without a cane and used a wheelchair while filming the Netflix series Dead To Me.

For Applegate, the answer she waited years for has turned into a new question, and the search for it starts again next week.