Credit: ArabTimesOnline.com
Former WWE star Chris Nowinski recently spoke about his new documentary on concussions. Here are the highlights…
On His Health: “I can’t drive without a GPS. I can’t exercise without getting a headache and without feeling sick… I don’t have the patience I once did. I take a stimulant for my cognition every day. The days I forget to take it, I notice it. I don’t even know what my own baseline is anymore. I don’t know if I’m any good without medication.”
On The Biggest Misconceptions about Concussions: “That they don’t have long-term consequences and that once you feel better, you’re fine. You may not be fine and need to rest and let your brain recover. Secondly, we have to face the fact that some athletes are developing a degenerative brain disease (known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE). The brain is far more fragile than we realize.”
On Getting Athletes to Sign Up and Donate Their Brain to Research: “I was the first guy! Virtually everybody in the ‘brain bank’ who took as much trauma to the head as I did has the disease. Right now we don’t even have a way to diagnose it or treat it while the person is alive. I’m so driven to find a way to treat this disease while I still have what I have.”
