Former AFL player Paul Seedsman has revealed the ongoing battle he manages on a daily basis following multiple head knocks during his career.
Seedsman, who played for Collingwood and Adelaide over 12 years, suffered a significant concussion in 2021, and struggled with persistent symptoms for two seasons, before retiring in 2023.
Even now, the 2015 Anzac Day medallist is still feeling the effects, which is impacting his ability to work.
"Every day I'm symptomatic. It's just on the severity and longevity of it," Seedsman told ABC Sport.
"Some mornings I wake up and I can't get out of bed and I'm sort of gone for the whole day. Other days, it gradually just increases throughout the day.
"I haven't been able to work for three years, so just the commitment, doing it every day, coming out here for a couple of hours, even though I only get to one training session a week, it chops and changes, some weeks I don't get there.
"I think last year I had a really bad patch towards the end of the year, and I think I missed about three weeks in a row.
"That's where I really appreciate the people at Walkerville for how understanding they are in that, and that's why I really enjoy being out there."
The concussion issue has never been more prevalent in the AFL, with the forced retirement thrust into the spotlight after it was revealed West Coast defender Jeremy McGovern will front the AFL Concussion Panel to determine if his career will continue.
It comes as the past 18 months have seen Melbourne's Angus Brayshaw, Collingwood pair Nathan Murphy and Josh Carmichael, Bulldogs teenager Aiden O'Driscoll and Brisbane's Marcus Adams among others to hang up the boots.
"I get headaches, the nausea, dizziness," he said.
"Anything that I do during the day, the best way someone described it is like a battery life and with your phone battery, everything you do takes away from (the battery) so when I hit the yellow areas, then the symptoms start to go up.
"Then if I get in the red areas, they're the days where I can't get out of bed. If the phone goes flat, that's where, like in December, I was bedridden for two or three weeks, and that was just from doing a couple of things in the morning one morning.
"I've never had a stroke, but it sort of feels like a stroke. I couldn't lift my arms and legs off the bed, I couldn't talk, I just had to lay down for a while and eventually drinking fluid and eating and settling down, I can get that back in in terms of movement and talk, but I can't do anything, I'm just in agony."
Seedsman played 132 games for the Pies and Crows after being drafted with Pick 76 in the 2010 National Draft.
He produced a career-best season in 2021, making the All-Australian squad.
