Christina Applegate has revealed that she noticed her first MS symptom while filming Dead To Me.
The 53-year-old actress, best known for starring as Jen Harding in the Netflix comedy, was diagnosed with the lifelong autoimmune condition in 2021 while filming the third and final season of the TV series.
Multiple Sclerosis affects communication between the brain and nerves in the body. In some cases, it can cause permanent numbness, vision problems, problems with controlling the bladder, muscle pains and spasms, extreme fatigue, and even paralysis.
The autoimmune condition can not currently be cured, though medication can help manage the symptoms.
Applegate opened up about the first symptom of MS she experienced while filming Dead To Me in 2019 on the latest episode of her podcast, MeSsy - which she co-hosts with actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also has MS.
She explained that she was running across a field for a scene for the pilot episode and fell down. "I remember falling that day," she recounted "Hi, first sign of MS!"
The actress's friend, Liz Feldman - who is the director of the Netflix series - was present during the moment and recalled: "I remember you losing your balance a couple of times but it was very hard to figure out.
"I remember one time it was like really late at night, we’d been shooting probably 14 or 15 hours, it seemed completely reasonable that anybody would be collapsing," she continued.
The 47-year-old spoke about Applegate's diagnosis, adding: "There’s no handbook for this. I could just sense that A, she was scared and B, that something was wrong, something in her body was not working the way that she wanted it to.
"I told her so many times that it’s just a TV show; we’re making a TV show and it’s so silly, you know, at the end of the day!" Feldman said. "I knew Christina well enough to know that something major had to be going on because she’s an extreme professional."
The Married... with Children star previously revealed to Variety that initially she "brush[ed] off" her symptoms, but as she started shooting the third season of the TV show, she felt as though she had been "hit by a truck and didn’t know what was going on".
"It was very scary for me because this body that I had known was no longer mine," Applegate said. "We had to kind of work around that until, finally, I had answers.
"I found that I had MS while we were shooting on a Monday. I went home, and the doctor said, 'I need to do this meeting with you,'" she continued. "I could feel that this Zoom was not going to be good news. It sucked, I’m not going to lie."
By the summer of 2021, Applegate's mobility had significantly declined, requiring her to be transported to the film set in a wheelchair. To accommodate her condition, producers adjusted her scenes so she'd be more comfortable.
“That would not happen anywhere else. So my gratitude toward you guys being humans - because you should be humans and love other humans! - is, like, I can’t even tell you, that’s not the normal reaction!” she said on the podcast.