Christina Applegate’s 13-Year-Old Daughter Shares Her Own Health Diagnosis

Christina Applegate and her daughter, Sadie Grace LeNoble, attend the 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2023. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

On the heels of Christina Applegate’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2021, the actress’ teenage daughter, Sadie Applegate-LeNoble, has disclosed that she is currently facing her own health challenges.

“I have something called POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome,” the 13-year-old revealed during the June 25 episode of Ms. Applegate’s “MeSsy“ podcast, cohosted by fellow actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

“It’s something to do with the autonomic nervous system,” the teen described, noting that the disorder affects her heart. “When I stand up, I get really, really dizzy and, like, my legs get really weak, and I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

Sadie said the condition occasionally causes her to faint but that she only falls unconscious on “really bad days when it’s hot out.”

“I actually just got diagnosed with this two, three months ago,” she explained. “So it’s definitely, like, new to me knowing what it is. But of course, I’ve had to live with it for a long time.”

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is relatively common, affecting about 1 million to 3 million people in the United States. The condition is a form of dysautonomia, a nervous system disorder that disrupts automatic body functions, such as heart rate and blood pressure.

The symptoms of POTS, including fatigue, lightheadedness, heart palpitations, tremors, headaches, blurry vision, and nausea, can vary from person to person and are brought on by a combination of factors. These include reduced blood volume, excessive blood pooling below the heart level when standing, and increased levels of certain hormones, such as epinephrine, also known as adrenaline.

There is currently no cure for POTS. However, medications and lifestyle changes, such as improved diet and exercise, may help manage symptoms.

Health Struggles

Elsewhere in the interview, Sadie revealed that she also struggles with misophonia, a chronic condition that causes people to be extremely sensitive to certain sounds. The teen said breathing and eating noises were her biggest triggers, admitting that she couldn’t even stand the sounds she makes when she breathes and chews.

“We don’t even eat together. We can’t, she won’t,” Ms. Applegate said. “It breaks my heart because I love sitting with you and talking and having a meal, but it’s like she can’t, she literally can’t.”

The “Married... with Children” star also expressed sadness over her daughter’s most recent diagnosis of POTS. “I hate it for you, my darling,” she declared. “I really hate it for you. I’m sad, but I love you, and I know you’re gonna be okay, and I’m here for you.”

However, despite the negative effects of living with the chronic blood circulation disorder, Sadie explained that her condition has allowed her to better relate to her mother’s health battle.

“I feel like if I didn’t have this thing, it would be a lot harder to understand what my mom’s going through,” she shared, noting that her disorder also causes her to experience tremors—something her mother struggles with, too.

“It’s definitely a lot easier to understand what she’s going through when I have something I’m going through as well,” the teen added.

Speaking with “Good Morning America“ in March about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, Ms. Applegate said she first noticed symptoms at the start of 2021. At the time, the 52-year-old was gearing up to film the final scenes for her Netflix series ”Dead to Me.”

“It was literally just tingling in my toes,” she recalled. “And by the time we started shooting in the summer of that year, I was ... in a wheelchair. I couldn’t move that far.”

Ms. Applegate was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease later that year. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, the long-lasting disorder arises when the body’s immune system mistakenly destroys myelin—the fatty tissue that protects nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord—causing nerve damage that inhibits communication, or electrical impulses, between the brain and other parts of the body.

Sadie explained that it has been “really hard” to see her mother lose her mobility, recalling the joy she and her mother used to share when they danced together.

“Every night, I remember when I was a kid, we would dance ... in her room for like hours at a time,” she shared. “And then in 2021, when she got diagnosed, it kind of just felt like—not like everything was over—but it was hard, like, seeing my mom lose a lot of the abilities she used to have in my childhood.

“It’s definitely hard seeing my mom struggle with this,” she said. “It’s also been nice being able to help her and support her.”