Christina Applegate spent several days in hospital for a double kidney infection.
The 53-year-old actor, who is battling multiple sclerosis (MS), opened up about her ordeal during the latest episode of her "MeSsy" podcast, which she recorded from the hospital bed, saying that she had been "screaming" in pain and was not entirely sure what was wrong, according to the Independent.
Applegate explained that she started feeling ill while vacationing in Europe. During her flight back to Los Angeles, she made the decision that she would head straight to the hospital upon landing.
"I was really afraid to go back home and get to the point where I was so bad that like at three in the morning, my poor friend has to drive me, and it's a Saturday night and it's going to be horrible," she told co-host Jamie-Lynn Sigler.
"So I was like, 'I'm going to go and I'm not leaving there until I have some [expletive] answers!' Like, I'm done. Think outside the box. Don't just leave me there, give me meds, and say, 'You feel better now. You're going home.' I want to know why this is happening, and I want it to stop so that I don't have to keep coming here."
The next day, she began to experience intense pain in the right side of her back, which led her to think that it could be from a burst appendix.
"Flank from my back to my front is in so much pain. I'm like screaming. And they ordered me an emergency CT at two o'clock in the morning. I went in and got a CT. And I had kidney infections," she said, adding that she was given antibiotics for the infection.
"That's where we're at. And now they're thinking that it could be something else, and I don't want to say what they think, because I don't want it to sound scary, but I'm just going to be here."
After the episode aired, Applegate told several outlets that she had already received treatment for the kidney infection and was now back at home.
"I'm home and have been treated for the kidney infection. As far as my ongoing stomach thing, it's a work in progress. I was there seven days," Applegate said in a statement, according to the Independent.
Earlier this year, Applegate opened up about the toll MS has taken on her health, revealing she has been hospitalized more than 30 times since her diagnosis.
"For three years, since I was diagnosed, I've been in the hospital upward of 30 times from throwing up and diarrhea and pain," she explained on a March episode of her podcast, according to E! News.
"That is unimaginable, OK? They've done every test known to man on me, put so much radiation into my body from CT scans to everything else," Applegate added.
After years of doctors dismissing her concerns since her 2021 diagnosis, Applegate has now connected her ongoing gastro issues to her MS, a chronic autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system, brain, and spinal cord.
"And literally just in the last month, I have figured it out," she said. "Now, maybe this isn't what's happening, but I'm just going to tell you this. Talk to your doctor about motility issues, OK. Because one of the things with MS is that it slows down our organs, you know, not like completely, but there is a slowing of the function of your organs."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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