Christina Applegate has been hospitalized due to a kidney infection that spread to both kidneys, leaving her in such intense pain that she said she was “screaming.”
The Married… With Children star, 53, recorded the Tuesday, Aug. 5, episode of MeSsy—the podcast she co-hosts with Jamie-Lynn Sigler—from a Los Angeles hospital while experiencing what felt like a burst appendix.
“I’m home and have been treated for the kidney infection,” Applegate said in a statement to PEOPLE, via her representative, on Tuesday afternoon. “As far as my ongoing stomach thing, it’s a work in progress. I was there 7 days.”
Applegate explained that she began to feel ill while visiting family in Europe. By the time she returned home, she decided to head directly to the hospital rather than risk a medical emergency overnight.
“I’m like, I wanna be admitted,” she told Sigler, expressing her frustration with her ongoing health struggles related to multiple sclerosis. “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.”
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The following morning, she said she woke up with sharp pain on her right side.
“Of course, my brain’s like, ‘Oh, my appendix is bursting,’” she recalled.
She described the pain as “radiating” from her back to her front. “So much pain. I’m screaming, and they ordered me an emergency CT at 2 in the morning,” she said. The scan revealed a kidney infection, which has since spread to her left kidney.
“I’m just gonna be here,” she said, referring to her hospital stay. “Because of this kidney infection, I have to have intravenous antibiotics right now. And that’s where we’re at.”
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Doctors initially suspected a urinary tract infection and even questioned her hygiene.
“Like, what am I back-wiping? Like, seriously, I’m 53,” she said, explaining that she had been asked whether she wiped from front to back during a previous hospital visit. “I have the cleanest vagina … I’m a clean girl down yonder.”
While keeping her sense of humor, Applegate acknowledged the emotional toll.
“I’m holding in a bag o’ tears right now,” she said. “I sometimes fall into the nurse’s arms like a freako, just like crying.”
