Christina Applegate talks pain associated with MS: ‘I lay in bed screaming’

Christina Applegate is opening up about the pain she experiences from multiple sclerosis.

The Married… with Children alum, 52, shared her latest health update during the Nov. 5 episode of the MeSsy podcast she co-hosts with fellow actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS.

“I lay in bed screaming,” she continued, attributing that to “the sharp pains, the ache, the squeezing.”

“I can’t even pick up my phone sometimes, ’cause now it’s traveled into my hands,” she detailed. “So I’ll, like, try to go get my phone or get my remote to turn on the TV or whatever, and I can’t — sometimes I can’t even hold ’em. I can’t open bottles now.”

Applegate said that while her outside may look fine, it’s just because people can’t see what’s going on inside.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks myelin, the tissue that coats nerve fibers within the central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health.

MS can be unpredictable, causing differing symptoms with variable timing and frequency from fatigue, numbness or tingling, weakness, dizziness and vertigo to rendering a person unable to write, speak or walk in the most severe cases, according to the NIH. Individually, MS symptoms can vary, ranging from mild to extreme pain during a flare-up of the disease.

There is currently no known cure for MS.

Applegate, who was diagnosed with the chronic disease in 2021, told Good Morning America in March 2024 that living with MS was “kind of hell.”

“They call it the invisible disease. It can be very lonely because it’s hard to explain to people,” she said at the time. “I’m in excruciating pain, but I’m just used to it now.”