Faustino discussed long-term friend, Applegate, at the Cure Addiction Now’s annual fundraising event on Nov. 9

NEED TO KNOW

• During an appearance at the Cure Addiction Now’s annual fundraising event on Monday, Nov. 9, David Faustino gave a health update on his former Married…with Children costar, Christina Applegate
• Faustino said Applegate was a “strong soul” following her misdiagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS)
• He said he regularly sees Applegate and is supporting her through her ongoing health journey

David Faustino has given an update on how Christina Applegate is dealing with her misdiagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). 

The Married… with Children star, 52, attended the Cure Addiction Now’s annual fundraising event on Monday, Nov. 9 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he discussed his former co-star. 

Applegate, 54, recently revealed on her MeSsy podcast that her doctor told her that she did not have MS, noting to co-host Jamie Lynn Sigler, “I haven’t gotten better, Jamie! If anything, I’ve gotten worse. So I’m back at square one where I don’t know what’s going on with me.”

Faustino said he sees Applegate, who was diagnosed with MS in 2021, on a “regular basis” and revealed that he was trying to give her his love and support through her health journey.  

“She’s struggling to find out what’s going on and I’m just giving her the best and the most love I can through this process,” he exclusively tells PEOPLE.

Faustino described Applegate as a “strong soul,” adding, “She’s very dry. Her humor, she keeps it going with humor. Even in the worst of circumstances, she can still come up with a witty one-liner to zap you. And I attribute it to her humor.”

He also described Applegate’s mother, Nancy Priddy, as a “strong woman.”

Applegate candidly said that she had gone through a “great depression” because of her health struggles in Part II of the podcast episode, which was released on Oct. 20.

“I still have to use wheelchairs when I go to the doctor’s office,” she said. “I can’t walk from the car to the room. I’m still in this. Nothing magical happened when she said, ‘You don’t have MS.’ Nothing magical happened.”

MS is a chronic neurological and autoimmune disease that causes the breakdown of the protective covering of nerves and can cause symptoms such as numbness, weakness, trouble walking, and vision changes, per the Mayo Clinic.

Applegate said on the Nov. 3 episode of the MeSsy podcast that her doctors were now testing for the “sister” diseases to MS.

“You’ve got RA [rheumatoid arthritis], lupus, Lyme disease, all these things can kind of mimic MS,” she said. “So now I’m being tested for all that stuff slowly but surely.”

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The Dead to Me actress said that after building a community with others who had been diagnosed with MS, she was also struggling to find her place, calling the situation a “mindf—.”

“It’s weird because I feel like I let everybody down,” she said. “It’s this weird feeling because I became this — you and I, the poster children for MS. And everything I was doing. I had a reason. I had a f—ing reason as to why my day sucked every day. And now I don’t have a reason and it’s very unnerving and it’s very confusing for me.” 

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