What caused Christina Applegate’s hospitalization? Actress opens up about severe kidney infection

Christina Applegate just released a new episode of her and Jamie-Lynn Sigler's MeSsy podcast on Tuesday, August 5, 2025. However, unlike previous episodes, she recorded this one from a hospital bed in Los Angeles to discuss what she has been going through.

Titled Live from the Hospital, Christina Applegate shared that she had been hospitalized due to an infection that had spread to both her kidneys. She said that she admitted herself shortly after returning from Europe to visit her family because she wanted some answers, saying:

"I'm like, 'I wanna be admitted.' I'm staying here because I want answers. I want every test that you can possibly think of or ones that you haven't even thought of, and I want them done."

Applegate's latest health condition comes amidst her battle with multiple sclerosis (MS). The actress revealed her MS diagnosis back in August 2021 in a post on X, marking her latest health struggle after her breast cancer diagnosis in 2008.

Now, while in the hospital, she shared more about her MS symptoms and the extreme pain she had been experiencing recently.

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Christina Applegate shares experiencing "so much pain" and a kidney infection amid her MS battle

While talking to her MeSsy co-host, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, on the latest episode of the podcast, Christina Applegate shared how her doctors found out that she had an infection in both her kidneys. After admitting herself to the hospital, wanting some answers for feeling unwell recently, she said that she woke up the next day with extreme pain on her right side.

She said her first thought was that her appendix might be bursting. The Bad Moms actress explained how that pain was radiating from her back to the front, adding:

"[There was] so much pain. I'm screaming."

It was around two in the morning, she said, when doctors had to order her for an emergency CT scan. That’s when they discovered the infection had spread to her left kidney as well. She will remain in the hospital for treatment, explaining:

"Because of this kidney infection, I have to have intravenous antibiotics right now. And that's where we're at."

Christina Applegate has been open about her health struggles since revealing her multiple sclerosis in 2021. She often shares updates about MS and how her symptoms have progressed. In a November 2024 episode of MeSsy, she gave a raw account of her MS disease, opening up about how it had left her lying in bed "screaming" in pain.

She added that her symptoms had worsened, and besides MS keeping her confined to bed most of the time, it had also hindered her from doing the most basic things. She said that she couldn't pick up and hold her phone sometimes ot the remote to turn on the TV.

Applegate also shared how her feet would hurt when she tries to stand up and how mornings are especially painful for her.

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Christina Applegate admitted that her health condition can make her emotional sometimes, recalling in the latest MeSsy episode how she once went "freako" and collapsed into her nurse's arms crying.

Edited by Sriparna Barui