Debby Ryan is reflecting on a “life-altering” brain injury. The Disney Channel alum revealed that she has suffered five concussions throughout her life, with the last one leaving a lasting impact on her health.
“I had a pretty crazy, life-altering brain injury a few years ago,” Ryan shared during a recent appearance on Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals series. “I was out of commission for six months. I went to this neurological rehab for six months, went and did this fringe science treatment that was, like, really sci-fi and crazy. I’ve done it a couple of times, and it kind of got me back online, but there are some things that just did not come back.”
How Ryan’s fifth concussion continues to affect her daily life
Debby Ryan said that the first four concussions in her life were “like an incident.” However, “the fifth one was sustained shaking over a minute of time”. The Insatiable actress added, “There’s sort of pre-incident Debby and post-incident Debby.”
Ryan revealed that the incidents caused her to also suffer from migraines. Sharing her experience, the actress continued, “The visual data that I’m taking in, it can be so distracting and so loud. And then with the migraines, which were significantly worsened by that [brain injury], it sort of is too much. And so I do find that, like if there’s a thing that can make things really singular, I like that.”
Later in the interview, Ryan also got candid about her “hellish” migraines and their effects. “I don’t know if you’ve ever met anyone with migraines, but we’ll bring up that we have migraines. And by the way, we’re all way too casual about it because it’s hellish,” she said. “I’m a migraine warrior. And quite often, the world is really loud. It’s really too bright. It’s too… there’s a lot going on.”
Ryan noted that the fifth concussion and her brain injuries made “things significantly worse.”
