Christina Applegate details the “excruciating torment” of MS

Christina Applegate candidly reveals the harrowing reality of living with multiple sclerosis (MS) in her new memoir.

She was an Emmy Award-winning actress Diagnosis of chronic autoimmune disease in June 2021 at the age of 49 and shared the life-changing news with fans two months later.

“I wish I could say I’m a miracle,” Applegate, now 54, writes in her new memoir.You are the one with the sad eyes“, released today. “Although it is very hard to believe most days, in any case, I do not want to underestimate what this disease does to the human body and soul.”

Multiple sclerosis attacks myelin — the protective covering surrounding nerve fibers — leading to inflammation and distortion of signals between the brain and the body.

almost 1 million Americans They are believed to be living with the disease, which can mutate over time, unleashing a wide range of symptoms that flare up, subside and transform in unexpected ways.

“The pain I felt at first was not what it is these days,” Applegate wrote. “At the time, it was more of a forceless kind of pain, not the usual pain Painful torment “I am here now.”

Chronic illness had stripped her of even the smallest acts of daily life that she had previously taken for granted.

“When I wake up, I often can’t move my arm far enough to pick up my cup of water from my bed or my phone from the charger,” she writes. “Often, my stomach slows to a halt, leaving me to my own devices Regularly rush to the emergency room In agony.”

And then there is burnout.

“I feel like I’ve had insomnia for three days, but there’s no curvature for me — that’s how I feel after a good night’s sleep,” Applegate admits. “That’s why I spend all the time in bed and in bed, cuddling with Jake Ryan, which I call my heating pad.”

Looking back, there it was Warning signslike the day she casually asked the chiropractor why her toes twitched.

“I will never forget the look he gave me,” she recalls. “My mother has,” he said before quickly changing the subject. Let’s work on some other things.”

When numbness crept into her limbs, she underwent a series of tests to determine her true symptoms. The results came on a Zoom call Monday morning that would change everything.

Her doctor showed her a revealing image of her brain 30 lesions He crossed his roof before the news broke.

At the time, Applegate was filming the final season of Dead to Me. At first, it worked. But some days, her body refused to cooperate.

“I remember trying to walk down the stairs in my house at six in the morning, and I could only get to the ninth staircase,” she writes. She called from work that day.

Health battles are not new territory for Applegate. she He famously broke her foot during a pre-Broadway run of “Sweet Charity” in 2005 and underwent a double mastectomy in 2008 after having an early Breast cancer diagnosis.

But MS, she says, is different.

“With my broken metatarsal, the broken bones healed. With the cancer, it was taken out of my body, and I was able to move forward,” she explains. “But MS is my constant companion. In fact, I’ll probably disappear because of it. It scares me to death.”

She wrote frankly that living with the disease “bads.”

“I feel like my knees are stuck together, heavy and painful,” Applegate says. “When I put my feet on the ground when I wake up, it feels as if the ground is made of needles, yet I cannot feel them because my feet are completely numb.”

Her skin feels as if it’s burned, and even on a good day, her pain is around an eight out of 10.

MS has also brought indignities she never imagined, including wearing adult diapers.

“The diapers are so chic for MS because a lot of us have incontinence issues. They’re so much fun! But at least they make black diapers now,” she jokes.

“So, if you really want to know how I’m doing: I had to take some stuff off me earlier today due to being sick. Oh, I fell.”

She even joked about launching a diaper line with Sopranos star Jamie Lyn Sigler, who was She was diagnosed with MS at the age of 20 years.

“Each of them will have a simple message printed: FK THIS,” she writes.

Although there is no cure for MS, treatments can slow progression and help treat symptoms — but they come with their own drawbacks.

Applegate gets steroid injections every six months to slow the disease, but the drugs kill off her B cells, leaving her vulnerable to infections.

It also caused her to gain significant weight, a crushing blow for an actress who has long struggled with eating disorders. Including loss of appetite During her presence in the program “Married… with Children.”

Even getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was bittersweet.

“One time, people stared at my breasts, then they stared at my broken foot,” she said. “But now I realize that they were staring not just because I was disabled, they were staring because I was fat, which is an unacceptable fate for women in Hollywood forever.”

She admits that sometimes being overweight affected her more than the disease itself.

“I didn’t look in the mirror for a year,” Applegate wrote.

Eventually, doctors put her on a clear liquid diet to address her stomach problems. Over the course of seven months, she Dropped over 50 pounds. She now says her legs are “smaller than ever.”

She calls it another cruel development—coming to terms with food, only to be upset by her own weakness.

These days, Applegate has mostly stayed away from on-camera roles but is open to voiceover or producing work. She says her focus is on her 15-year-old daughter, Sadie Grace, whom she shares with husband Martin LeNoble.

But MS is never far from her mind.

“MS is a disease of progress, but it is also a disease of roller coasters,” she writes. “Some days I can handle dancing, and other days I’m afraid of the wheelchair.”