Luke Ivens: The impacts of Brain Injury in Sport - A South Australian Story

Luke Ivens is one of CLF Australia's ambassadors and a dedicated SANFL player who clocked up 194 games for North Adelaide during 2000 and 2013. Luke thoroughly enjoyed his footy playing days despite suffering numerous concussions and head impacts. Near the end of his career, Luke noticed he was suffering from headaches, short-term memory loss, and anxiety. These symptoms then led to a reliance on self-medication and alcohol.
Luke later discovered these symptoms may have been linked to his past head impacts and decided to make a dramatic change in his own life whilst trying to help others with similar experiences. Luke has an important story to share as he inspires us all to find new ways to have hope.
In this CLF Australia webinar, Executive Director Annitta Siliato spoke with Ivens to discuss how he overcame adversity and is making a difference in educating and supporting others all over Australia.

[@braininjurydiy]

I've made myself an amatuer expert since suffering pcs for 5 years, I'd love to take that knowledge educate and advocate, but even 5 years post concussion I barely leave the house, too fatigued, too much headache, too much dizziness and being completely overwhelmed by noise and light to the point my legs go to jelly I can't walk and my speech slurs. We only ever hear those saying they don't begrudge their sport, here's the thing, if I'd known living like this was what I was risking, I would never play any of the sports that left me like this. I have no life and no purpose, for me I was an endurance athlete always taking on new sports, running, cycling, swimming, soccer, dragon boat racing, I was a teacher and in the army reserve, I planned to get into triathlon and ultramarathon, maybe mountain biking, my concussion just stopped my life, I can no longer work had to be retired from army, my best day is if I have less of a headache and some energy that enables me to potter around the house making little picture frames or trying to paint art and I can only do that when my vision is up to it because close focus can ramp up a migraine.

[@Acquisition1913]

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[@braininjurydiy]

I'm not hearing much from concussion legacy foundation in australia, there's a new org called connectivity that seems to be putting out better info, I had a dig at the ceo for not updating the info on prevalence of pcs citing the new cambridge research, and I'll be damned they got in and updated it. I always find the football influence is so extreme, concussion orgs either self censorship what they put out there or are bullied to tone it down or reframe the message. For instance connectivities concussion course, had a box at the bottom of the page explaining what second impact syndrome was, only thing was only the rare person would scroll down and see it, I feel that was deliberate because football doesn't want parents to know what second impact syndrome is.

[@danielprose5878]

How can someone with this number of concussions be so normal ? My lufe is Done after 4 mild concussions with no Black out and barely symptoms. My last mild concussion and all mental symptoms kicked in . I lost myself since than and cant barely live.

[@ConcussionLegacyFoundation]

Hi Daniel. Thank you for sharing that with us. We are so sorry to hear about the challenges you are experiencing. CLF is here for you and we will do our best to assist in any way we can.
The CLF HelpLine team can provide you with recommendations for doctors in your area, educational resources, and peer support. Please submit a request at CLFHelpLine.org

[@danielprose5878]

@@ConcussionLegacyFoundation thanx but im from germany