Christina Applegate’s daughter is sharing how she is able to relate to her mom’s illness.
The “Married…with Children” star’s daughter Sadie, 13, was this week’s guest on her mom’s podcast, “MeSsy,” which she hosts with fellow actress, Jamie-Lynn Sigler. While on the podcast, Sadie revealed she’s been diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Applegate has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
“When my mom’s like, ‘I’m in pain right now. I’m having tremors.’ If I didn’t have [POTS], I probably would be like… I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I actually have tremors from POTS,” Sadie said. “It’s definitely a lot easier to understand what she’s going through when I have something I’m going through as well.”
According to The Cleveland Clinic, POTS is when a person experiences anything from dizziness, fatigue, fast heart rate, headaches, chest pain and many other symptoms, “immediately or a few minutes after sitting up or standing.” This is a result of the body’s abnormal response to the hormones meant to help blood flow back to the heart.
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Sadie also explained she suffers from misophonia, which is an extreme sensitivity to sound. Misophonia can cause extreme discomfort, to the point of eliciting an emotional or physical response from the individual. “My two worst are breathing and chewing,” Sadie explained.
When Applegate was first diagnosed, Sadie said her mom came up with unique ways for her “to understand the pain of walking,” explaining, “she made us put on socks with sand.”
The teenager’s experience with her own health issues has made her more sympathetic to her mom’s health struggles, with Sadie taking every opportunity to try and help her mom — even when her help isn’t always wanted.
“Every time we go to a concert, she always is like, ‘You cannot push my wheelchair, Sadie, you’re going to run into a wall,'” she said. “And I will beg. I’m just like, ‘Please, Mom, let me push your wheelchair.’ Because I want to help her, so that’s definitely why I want to do it, but it’s also funny because she’s always saying, ‘No, I want this person to do it’… and it’s never me.”
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Applegate admitted her daughter is “darn good at pushing the wheelchair,” but the “Dead to Me” star’s hesitation to allow her to help comes from a fear Sadie might let go of the wheelchair while on a ramp, “because [she] thought it was funny.”
Although Sadie understands on some level what her mom is going through, Applegate admits to feeling “incredibly guilty” about not being able to do the things she would like to do for her daughter.
“Because I don’t ever want you to feel that I’m not capable to be your protector, your mother, you know, I love you,” she told her daughter. “I want to make you food. I want to bring it to you. I want to do all the things and I do when I can. And I feel incredibly guilty when I can’t.”
The actress was diagnosed with MS in June 2021, while filming the final season of “Dead to Me.” She has been very open about what living with the diagnosis has been like for her, recently sharing on the podcast, “I don’t enjoy living. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy things anymore.”
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While the comment sparked concerns from her fans, prompting her to respond in a subsequent episode of the podcast, saying “I’m good.”
“I dare anyone to be diagnosed with MS or any kind of chronic illness that has taken who you were prior to that moment and go, ‘This is great,'” she said. “You know? No, you have moments of feeling, ‘This is tiring and I don’t wanna do this.’ But you do it, and by having friends like you and my beautiful friends that I have saying this s— out loud, it releases the pressure in the balloon.”
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