Yahoo News Christina Applegate’s Daughter Explains Her POTS Syndrome and Misophonia Condition on Podcast
Christina Applegate’s daughter joined the podcast the actress co-hosts this week to discuss her experiences as her famous mother began to experience and cope with the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, and the two shared details of the ups and downs of their home lives since her diagnosis.
Sadie Grace LeNoble, Applegate’s daughter with musician Martyn LeNoble, who, Applegate says, is the “reason I get up in the morning and my joy of my life,” was the “very special” guest on the June 25 episode of MeSsy, the podcast Applegate launched with her friend, Sopranos actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, where the two openly and honestly discuss their lives coping with MS.
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The Emmy winner announced in August 2021 that she had received a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and, in 2023, said that she will likely no longer act in front of a camera but is open to voiceover work. She has been remarkably candid about the massive shift her life has taken and the daily struggles of life with a chronic disease; in 2023, she told Vanity Fair that it “fucking sucks.”
At the top of the episode, the 13-year-old was asked by Sigler what it’s been like since her mom began to feel the sometimes brutal impact of the disorder.
“It’s been really hard watching my mom go from this person who could get up and dance.… And then in 2021 when she got diagnosed, it kind of just felt like — not like everything was over, but it was hard seeing my mom lose a lot of the abilities she used to have in my childhood,” Sadie said.
Over the hourlong episode, Applegate and her daughter laughed and reminisced about some of the hardships and pitfalls of adjusting to living with a chronic illness. One such experience shared by LeNoble involved the times they attend concerts together, where Applegate uses a wheelchair for mobility.
“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,'” LeNoble told listeners. “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.”
Applegate shared that there have been some instances of her being pushed into walls — and at times, people — when LeNoble takes the handles.
LeNoble also shared details of her experience with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a condition when one’s heart rate increases very quickly after getting up from sitting or lying down. Applegate admitted that she did not recognize the issue for some time.
“I felt so horrible that we didn’t pay attention to it,” she said. “I didn’t know that there could be this thing until her best friend got diagnosed with POTS, so that kind of brought it to us.”
Sadie also revealed that she has misophonia, which is when certain sounds trigger unexpected emotional or physiological responses.
“I hate it, it’s one of my worst struggles in life,” the teen shared, adding that sounds of a household vacuum cleaner, other students chewing and even her own breathing while trying to fall asleep can be maddening. She told listeners that she finds noise-canceling headphones useful and admitted to playing low levels of music in classes.
Over the course of the episode, the two gave listeners a strong sense of the relationship between mother and daughter, which appears to have strengthened over time as both have coped with changes in their lives and sought to understand each other’s medical conditions.
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