The effects of consussion have forced Dominic Ryan to announce his retirement from rugby at the age of just 28. Ryan made one appearance for Ireland (vs Georgia in 2014) and played more than a hundred times for Leinster before joining Leicester Tigers last season.
Ryan confirmed his retirement in a piece in today's Irish Times, through which he profiled the disturbing ripples a concussion sent through his daily life. It is important reading, and can be found in full here.
In the piece, Ryan paints a pretty hellish image of the effects wrought on his daily life as he was stood down for 12 weeks to recover from concussion.
Ryan suffered his first injury of this nature when knocked out George North, and suffered another when knocked out cold in a game against Harlequins.. He was stood down for 12 weeks to recover, and as he neared the end of that time period, he returned to a weights session.
Let's allow Ryan to take up the story:
20 minutes after completing it I went out to watch the lads train and I started to get tunnel vision. My peripheral vision blurred and I got white patches that flashed.
It resembled looking at fireworks through binoculars. I could only see what was in front of me. I said to myself, ‘Jesus Christ this is bad’. It brought on the worst migraine. I had had migraines before around concussions but only directly related to trauma.
This was the worst. I couldn’t talk on the phone. I found people talking in my ear irritating. I remember going out for coffee with the lads, it wasn’t even a sunny day and I had my sunglasses on. It sounds stupid but that little bit of extra darkness the sunglasses afforded me helped.
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