Zoey Serrano has taken plenty of punishment inside the ring, but two injuries left her dealing with a completely different kind of fight once the match was over.
During her Zoey 101 Q&A, Serrano was asked what it actually feels like to suffer a concussion. That led her to reveal that she has dealt with two of them during her wrestling career, and her symptoms went far beyond a simple headache. Serrano explained that concussion symptoms can be different for everyone, but in her case the biggest problem was intense dizziness that made even lying down difficult.
“So people have different symptoms for this. I’ve had two, sadly. And when I got them, I. I got incredibly dizzy. So, like, I couldn’t lay on my left side or my right side because the room would just start spinning and I would get nauseous.”
She said other people can experience emotional changes, vomiting or memory problems after a concussion, but her own experience centered heavily around vertigo.
“Some people just get emotional. Some people throw up, Some people just forget. I just got really, really dizzy. Got really bad vertigo.”
Things got bad enough that Serrano had to go through physical therapy, though it wasn’t the type of rehab most fans might picture. Instead, the process involved repeatedly lying in different positions and waiting for the dizziness to disappear.
“I had to do, like, physical therapy, but it wasn’t like movement physical therapy. It was okay. We need you to lay down on one side. You need to stay in until the spinning stops. Once it stops, you go on your right side, lay in that position, wait till it stops. Stops now. You sit up.”
Even sitting back up could trigger the vertigo all over again, so Serrano said she had to repeat the process multiple times each day until her equilibrium started returning. For Serrano, the hardest part wasn’t just the dizziness. It was the feeling that she had lost control over what her own body was doing.
“Now, usually when you sit up, you get dizzy again. You wait for that and it stops. You do that multiple times a day until your equilibrium comes back.”
“That one I, I hate because it just makes me feel like I’m out of control and I hate being out of control.”
Serrano also made it clear that she was only describing her personal experience and wasn’t suggesting that every wrestler or every person with a concussion will experience the same symptoms.
“So that’s what it felt like for me personally. As I said, everyone has different symptoms. It’s not the same for everyone.”
Wrestling fans see the hits, falls and crashes on television, but Serrano’s story shows how some of the toughest effects can happen long after the bell rings. Two concussions left her battling dizziness, nausea and vertigo away from the cameras, and getting her equilibrium back became a process of its own.
What do you think about Serrano opening up about suffering two concussions during her wrestling career? Were you surprised by how severe the vertigo and recovery process became? Let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
