Christina Applegate candidly shared the challenges she faces living with multiple sclerosis (MS) in a recent interview with Vanity Fair.
Diagnosed in 2021, the actress admitted: "It sucks."
"Gravity can just pull you down and take everything down with you," she explained.
To cope with her difficulties, Christina and her family have created a "purgatory" space at the top of their stairs where her able friends can help move items downstairs.
The Dead to Me actress is grateful for friends who visit her and her 12-year-old daughter, Sadie.
However, she prefers to keep her surroundings as calm and mellow as possible due to her immunocompromised state and her sensitivity to overstimulation.
"It's exhausting," she shared, describing the amplified noise she experiences because of the brain lesions caused by MS.
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Finding comfort in friends like Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Selma Blair, who are also living with MS, Christina emphasizes the importance of having people around who understand the disease.
She acknowledges that others will never fully grasp the extent of its impact.
"It is imperative for me to have people who say: 'It's 80 degrees. What are we gonna do?' People don't understand that heat makes us sicker," she explained.
"With the disease of MS, it's never a good day. People are like, 'Well, why don't you take more showers?' Well, because getting in the shower is frightening. You can fall, you can slip, your legs can buckle. Especially because I have a glass shower. It's frightening to me to get in there."
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© Photo: Getty ImagesThe 51-year-old has revealed that Dead to Me may be her last on-camera performance.
For now, she's focused on voiceover work to support her family and keep her brain active.
In February, Christina made a rare public appearance at the 2023 SAG Awards, using a cane that displayed the message "FU MS" at the bottom.
Living with MS has made her appreciate the small things she once took for granted. "Going down the stairs, carrying things -- you can't do that anymore. It sucks," she lamented.
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