AFL icon Wayne Carey is “going numb” and has “shooting pains” as he prepares to undergo an operation to alleviate distress caused by his career-ending neck injury.
The North Melbourne legend, 54, who played 272 games across a 15-year career, hung up his boots in 2004 after damaging his cervical spine against Geelong.
Doctors informed him continuing could risk paralysis, so he was forced to announce his retirement two weeks after his final match.
Yet despite adhering to expert advice, Carey is set for an operation after visiting his long-time neurosurgeon Dr Matt Guttman following concerning symptoms.
Speaking on his You Cannot Be Serious podcast, he said: “My left hand is basically numb, right hand going numb, I’m getting shooting pains, all that sort of stuff.
“I’ve fallen over a couple of times in the last couple of weeks.
“I thought it was just me just maybe getting on in years and maybe tripped, but two days ago I went and saw a neurosurgeon.
“I got MRIs to find out the extent [of the problem]. The last MRI I had on my neck was about 15 years ago, and it was pretty bad.”
Carey, who had the latest in a series of shoulder operations back in 2022, has admitted he will “definitely” be going under the knife in an attempt to restore feeling in his hands.
He has explained his “strength and range of movement was gone” and that parts of his body are “severely arthritic”.
Carey won two premierships during his career — in 1996 and 1999 — and in 2010 was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
He made headlines four years ago when he was kicked out of a casino after a bag containing white powder allegedly fell out of his pocket and onto a gaming table at the Perth Promenade Hotel.
He was banned from the establishment for two years.
Carey’s lawyer Josh Bornstein said the powder was used to manage the physical pain caused from his years in the AFL.
Bornstein said: “Mr Carey is prescribed anti-inflammatories and painkilling medicine to help manage the significant pain caused by debilitating football injuries – including a shoulder that needs replacing and a neck injury that requires three discs to be replaced.”
