‘Weird’ symptoms Christina Applegate noticed before MS diagnosis as experts warn some signs can appear 15 years before

Christina Applegate has revealed some of the lesser-known MS symptoms that she experienced before being diagnosed in June 2021.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that affects the brain and spinal cord, and while there is no cure, experts have explained that some warning signs can appear up to 15 years before the illness is recognised.

The 53-year-old Anchorman actress has been incredibly open about her health issues in an effort to raise awareness of the early red flags.

Applegate even has her own podcast dedicated to the topic called MeSsy, which she hosts fellow MS sufferer Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

Now, MS can manifest a whole range of symptoms, some of which you may not immediately associate with the disease, including numbness and tingling and vision problems.

Speaking on SiriusXM’s This Life of Mine with James Corden last year, the Dead to Me star opened up on how she came to be diagnosed and listed the five ‘weird symptoms’ to keep an eye out for.

These were: Balance issues, speech issues, shaky hands, feeling weak at the knees (when walking etc) and numb toes.

Recalling the weeks leading up to her diagnosis, Applegate said: “Things just started to get weirder and weirder, and before I knew it, we were about to start shooting the last season of Dead To Me and by this time I was like, ‘You guys, I can’t even walk up the steps to my trailer’.”

This warning sign led the actress to get an MRI to try and identify what the problem could be – and the news she got wasn’t what she was hoping for.

Applegate continued: “[I] opened up my Zoom, and there he was, and he just looked at me, and he goes, ‘I’m so sorry’,” she said, before continuing: “I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ and he goes, ‘Here’s a picture of your brain. Sorry’, and there’s like 30 lesions all over my brain and I went, ‘No, please don’t tell me this. Please don’t tell me this’.

Explaining the symptoms, she said: “For years and years and years, I’d have, like, some weird things … balance issues, speech issues.

“My hands would shake sometimes, and I remember playing tennis – I played tennis a couple times a week, and my knee would go out.”

She admitted: “And I ignored it, and I still was hiking and then I’d be like, ‘Whoa, that’s, hmm. That’s a weird muscle spasm’.”

Today, a new study claims to reveal some of the MS indicators that can appear as many as 15 years before any other symptoms pop up.

These are fatigue, anxiety and pain – all three of which can be easily mistaken for something else.

The study looked at the health and GP records of 12,000 MS patients before their diagnoses to look for common patterns.

It found that the patients’ number of GP visits steadily increased as early as 15 years before some of the condition’s more typical symptoms set in.

They were particularly going to the doctor with fatigue, pain, dizziness, anxiety and depression.

It was found that visits to psychiatrists for mental health problems also increased 12 years before diagnosis.

On top of this, visits to eye doctors like neurologists and ophthalmologists increased between eight and nine years prior to diagnosis, with patients reporting blurry vision or pain.