New details have emerged about Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre’s Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.
Favre revealed he had the condition during a congressional hearing on Tuesday. He spoke about the diagnosis with TMZ Sports in Augustbut asked the outlet not to publish it at the time. Favre gave TMZ permission to publish the story on Wednesday, once the diagnosis was public.
The 54-year-old said he consulted five doctors before being diagnosed in January after noticing symptoms.
“[The doctors] “All said the same thing, if it doesn’t run in your family, and there’s not a single case in my family, the first thing we look at is head trauma,” Favre told TMZ. “Well, hell, I wrote the book on head trauma.”
He said he first started to worry when he had trouble getting his throwing arm through a jacket sleeve. “I could feel my arm, the power was there, but I couldn’t direct it,” he said. “And it was the most frustrating thing, so those two were really like, you know, I’m just going to get it checked out.”
Aaron Rodgers, quarterback for the New York Jets who replaced Favre with the Green Bay Packers before succeeding him as starter, said he was saddened by the news of the diagnosis.
“I feel sorry for him and [his wife] Deanna, but unfortunately it’s part of our game. That’s part of the risk of playing, and we all know somewhere in the back of our minds that at some point that could happen,” Rodgers said Wednesday. “We’re just hoping that at some point medicine can catch up with the symptoms and alleviate or eradicate the problems that we have.”
Favre said he may have suffered more than 1,000 concussions during his football career, which included 20 seasons in the NFL.
“If you have ringing in your ears, or you see stars, that’s a concussion,” Favre told the Today Show in 2018. “And if that’s a concussion, I’ve had hundreds, maybe thousands of them in my career, and it’s scary.”
Favre was known for his fearless play during a career that saw him throw 508 touchdown passes and win the 1997 Super Bowl with the Packers.
Parkinson’s, a degenerative neurological disease that affects movement and can cause tremors, speech problems and poor balance, has been linked to concussions. According to a 2020 study published in the Family Medicine and Community Health Journal, a single concussion can increase the risk of Parkinson’s by 57%. Concussions are also linked to other conditions, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE, which can only be definitively diagnosed at autopsy, is a neurodegenerative disorder linked to repeated head trauma. Symptoms experienced throughout life include cognitive impairment, impulsive behavior, depression, suicidal thoughts, short-term memory loss and emotional instability.
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Favre is one of several defendants named in a 2022 civil lawsuit filed by Mississippi’s Department of Human Services alleging misuse of welfare funds earmarked for the state’s neediest families under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. He has never been charged with any crimes related to the funds.
“The challenges that my family and I have faced over the past three years — as certain Mississippi government officials failed to protect federal TANF funds from fraud and abuse, and unfairly tried to blame me for them — those challenges have damaged my reputation and are worse than anything I’ve ever experienced in football,” Favre said during Tuesday’s hearing, where Republicans called for reforms to the federal welfare system to better prevent fraud.
Favre said he was unaware that the payments he received came from welfare funds, and said his charity had donated millions of dollars to poor children in his home state of Mississippi and in Wisconsin, where he played for the Packers.
He also said he lost an investment in a company he believed was producing a drug that could help treat concussions.
“Although it is too late for me – having recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s – this is also a cause close to my heart,” he said.