Christina Applegate‘s daughter recently opened up about her POTS diagnosis.
The Dead to Me star’s daughter starred in Tuesday’s episode of MeSsy. During the episode, Sadie, 13, spoke about coping with her mom’s MS diagnosis, as well as being diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
“I have something called POTS,” Sadie shared. “I have no clue what it actually is, but it’s something to do with the autonomic nervous system and it affects my heart. When I stand up, I get really, really dizzy and my legs get really weak and I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
“I have fainted before,” she added. “And I have gone unconscious, but that doesn’t usually happen.”
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is one of a group of disorders that have orthostatic intolerance (OI) as their primary symptom.”
“OI is a condition in which an excessively reduced volume of blood returns to the heart after an individual stands up from a lying down position. The primary symptom of OI is lightheadedness or fainting.”
Unfortunately, Sadie’s symptoms were consistently dismissed by her school and other people in her life. She mentioned that she started noticing the symptoms back in 2020 when she was only 9 years old. At the time, she began researching possible diagnoses and found that POTS matched her symptoms best.
Christina Applegate’s Daughter Discusses POTS Diagnosis
During the episode, Sadie explained that she had been suffering from her symptoms for a very long time but was often dismissed.
“They wouldn’t do anything for it,” she said about her school, noting that the nurse would send her back to PE despite her feeling unwell. “That definitely was hard because I genuinely felt so sick and I was in a lot of pain. Them not doing anything about it definitely hurt me physically and emotionally.”
“And I feel very guilty because … I didn’t really understand what was happening with her,” Christina chimed in. “I feel so horrible that we didn’t pay attention to it … At home, you were fine.”
Christina added that external stressors like school likely brought out her symptoms.
“It’s kind of like us,” Christina said. “We get out in the world, and the stresses and the anxiety of the world bring upon our symptoms much worse than they would be if we were in the safety and the coolness of our homes.”
“I’m so sorry, Sadie Grace,” she added.
A silver lining of the diagnosis, according to Sadie, is her ability to more easily understand what her mom is going through.
“Like, when my mom’s like, ‘Oh, I’m kind of in pain right now. Oh, I’m having tremors.’ If I didn’t have this, I probably would be like, ‘I don’t really care. I don’t know what you’re talking about,'” Sadie said.