Darrell Currie’s life-changing illness: ‘It felt like a bomb went off in my brain’

It had been a standard Champions League broadcast until shortly before 10pm, when something erupted inside Darrell Currie’s head.

Real Madrid were in Glasgow to take on Celtic and, as the face of BT Sport’s Scottish football coverage, he was presenting more than three hours of live television alongside Michael Owen, Chris Sutton and Gordon Strachan.

The programme was running as smoothly as anyone who has seen Currie in action would expect. His career was on the rise, having also been chosen as one of the hosts of BT Sport’s Goals Show, their attempt to rival Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday. Perhaps his highest-profile moment came when he coaxed an on-pitch admission from Eden Hazard that he was leaving Chelsea following their Europa League triumph in 2019.

Currie’s exhaustive preparation over 25 years had helped him climb the media ladder, but no amount of research could have braced him for what he felt during the final segment of the show in September 2022.

“It felt like a bomb went off in my brain. Like something exploded in my head,” he tells The Athletic.

It was the start of a health nightmare, one that means he has not presented a television programme for almost two years. His career and, more importantly, his quality of life have been wrecked by this crippling mystery illness. He lives in chronic pain and has spent tens of thousands of pounds searching for answers or cures, two things that still elude him and have led him to dark places.

“It is strange sitting here, telling the story of what has happened to me,” he says. “I wasn’t sure what or when to say it, as when things are complicated medically you want to tell the right story and maybe help people.

“My two kids, especially my boy, were wondering why I hadn’t said much. His friends had seen me on TV and wondered where I had gone.

“They had Googled my name at school once when they were doing something on their parents and the top search was ‘Who does Darrell Currie support?’. Now it was ‘What happened to Darrell Currie?’.”

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“The second it happened, I remember holding onto my chair,” says Currie, casting his mind back to the moment his life changed, as he and the pundits around him were attempting to dissect Real Madrid’s 3-0 victory at Celtic Park.

“I felt dizzy, like I was going to fall out of my seat and pass out. I managed to finish the chat and get to the break but I came off air feeling terrible.

“Walking back to the TV trucks, it felt like the ground wasn’t there. I had no real sense of where I was.”

Currie travelled to London the next morning to present another Champions League game, his body still reeling.

A late-night appointment with a private GP diagnosed him with labyrinthitis — inflammation of the ear.

It did not allay his fears, as the pain increased over the next three weeks, coming to a head while presenting coverage of Scotland vs Ireland at Hampden Park.

“I texted the producer during the second half asking how long the post-match segment was,” says Currie. “I was struggling to stand up and every time I was turning my head to chat to the pundits, I felt like going to faint or fall over.

“I take a lot of pride in my work so I would never, ever not finish a programme, but that night the producer saw something was not right with me. He came into the stadium during the game and said he was taking it out of my hands: I was being taken off air. It was the biggest weight off my shoulders.”

That happened on September 24, 2022 — and it is the last time Currie was able to present live television.

His legs seized up completely and he pleaded with his mum to help him get back to his wife and kids in London that night, as he feared he would not get out of hospital for a long time if he was admitted.

As he was helped out of Euston train station the next morning with one arm draped around his mum and the other around his wife, Currie knew there was something seriously wrong.

The throbbing pain was too extreme to be an ear infection, and it was too ubiquitous to be related to tearing a disc in his back while stepping out of the shower four months earlier.

It made little sense for someone with barely an ounce of fat on them, especially one married to Jennifer, a pilates and barre instructor. He put it down to the gruelling schedule of the previous season — Rangers’ surprise run to the Europa League final meant extra travel and left him feeling run-down.

But no amount of rehab and physio was helping and his pain levels were becoming more chronic by the day, spreading across his entire body. With doctors unable to offer an explanation and Currie now unable to work, he was forced to take matters into his own hands and embark on a worldwide search for a diagnosis.

Almost two years later, now 41, he is still stuck in purgatory — but he has come back from the brink.

After a horrific few months at the end of 2022 and into 2023, Currie could barely get out of bed.

A call with a concerned doctor in the U.S. led to him being referred to a specialist in Germany who believed he had the early symptoms of arachnoiditis, a rare, progressive inflammatory condition which affects the part of the body that protects the nerves of the brain and the spinal cord.

Driven by curiosity and fear, he joined online groups for sufferers and was petrified to learn how debilitating the illness becomes as it worsens, with some reports describing paralysis and others rating the pain level as being not far behind bone cancer.

“For those few months after that diagnosis, I’m not sure I wanted to be alive,” says Currie.

“I would talk to my wife often about, ‘What is the point in being here?’ I couldn’t really see the light of day.

“I would never have committed suicide, as I remember speaking to Kris Boyd about his charity (the former Rangers striker’s brother took his own life) and I know how that can be for your family, leaving them like that.”

But while Currie does not believe he was ever close to taking his own life, he was contemplating how he could limit the trauma to his family by discussing it in advance.

“I never told anyone I was thinking of it, but I was genuinely trying to think of ways I could do it — even if that was abroad so it was something assisted,” he says. “The pain was horrific. My neck felt broken, my back felt broken, my whole body felt broken. I could barely hold my head up. I was questioning everything.

“I think I am a really positive person, so that wasn’t me. It was like something taking over my body. My wife has been an inspiration, pushing me every day. If it wasn’t for her I genuinely don’t think I would have been able to stay alive. Any time I was in bed saying these things she would phone my mum, as if she was getting me into trouble. The two of them would talk some sense into me.

“Within two or three months, I got my head together. I’ve got two children — I don’t think I’d have compromised their life or made it worse.”

In the early months, the symptoms were so severe that Currie underwent a brutal course of steroid treatment. He was in such a morbid place that he wanted to prepare his kids, Georgia (nine) and Harrison (12), for the worst. “I remember being at the kitchen table and there were a lot of tears,” he recalls. “I told them I was on this medication and that hopefully it will make me better, but it might make me worse. They knew that, by even taking the time to talk them through this, things were obviously bad.

“My daughter was really sad and they were probably worrying I was going to die. I was worrying I was going to die. I didn’t tell them that, but I thought we had to give them some information to let them know this was going to be a battle and a struggle. I think the steroids saved my life.”

As Currie sits and articulately narrates a timeline of complex medical terms, he does not look ill. But as the lighting is being adjusted for the interview, it causes disequilibrium and the room starts spinning.

This is information he only shares afterwards and that is one of the problems doctors have told him he faces: he has become too adept at hiding his pain and making his condition invisible to the outside world when inside he is hurting.

It is why he carries a long umbrella on sunny days. In reality, it is a walking stick but he refuses to let it dictate his life and keep him in bed as he has found the only way to live with it is to keep his body moving, even if every stride is punishing.

“It is intense. I take medication to try to stop some of that nerve pain, but it is like shooting electric shocks going through your body.

“It feels like my muscles are so tense they can barely move. I have weakness in my legs and thighs when walking, as if they’re barely attached to my body. I get pain up through my neck and it is like I’ve got inflammation in my head.

“You can process pain and I have read a lot about how to do that. You have to remember that pain is a signal to your brain. If you can try to control those you can find a way to live, but it is there all the time and the dizziness is constant. Even sitting here, I don’t feel quite stable.”

As soon as he wakes up each day, he does neck and spine exercises before attempting to get out of bed as his body feels too brittle to move.

Every night, he lies on his side with a pillow between his legs and a heat pack on his back, which has stripped the skin off his body and left it red raw. But it is the only way to find a modicum of relief.

That relief helps him fulfil the promise he made to himself a few months after being at his lowest ebb: that he would live as full a life as possible.

“I was determined that, even if I can’t get back to the old me, I was going to make sure I had a good life for my family,” he says.

“I put so much effort into every day, in getting the kids to school and their clubs, that most nights I just feel totally finished. I say to my wife it feels like I have run a marathon. It feels like I’ve not got an ounce left.

“The kids don’t know it, but I’ll be watching at the side of the pitch or the pool and I can barely stand up. You are talking to other parents trying not to mention it and you are excusing yourself so you can come in and out. It is tough, as it takes every ounce of you to do all those things.

“A few weeks ago I had a really bad spell and one day I was out walking and I just couldn’t get home. I was a mile away and I could barely take another step. I had to find somewhere to sit and wait on my wife to come and rescue me an hour and a half later.”

Slight progress has been made. He has been diagnosed with chronic pain and nerve damage in his spinal canal, while he is now working with Dr Ben Sinclair, who is using his own experiences of long Covid to help treat others. He believes Currie is also a sufferer.

Friends directed him to Dr Ian McGuinness, the Qatar national team doctor, who has emptied his contacts book to help find the best doctors and physicians around the world.

“I’ll never be able to thank him enough. Without Ian’s input I don’t think I would have been able to get as far as I have in the medical journey.”

One included undertaking a cytokine panel with an American doctor, which assesses for micro-markers of inflammation in the body. The laboratory phoned urgently and told him he should speak to a doctor immediately as, from the hundreds of thousands of panels done since Covid, his results were in the top five per cent.

Research has shown that in patients with severe Covid, the immune system can overreact and instead of helping fight the virus, it damages the cells and tissues of the body itself. That can be fatal.

He did not join the dots at the time, but two weeks before Currie injured his back in 2022, he tested positive for Covid.

As he has gone deeper into the investigation and more tests have been done, the belief his illness is related to the virus or the subsequent three vaccines he took has grown stronger.

“After the first vaccine I got terrible tinnitus in my ears within 12 hours, so it was definitely a side-effect,” he says. “I went to see my GP and they said there weren’t any (known side-effects) at the time, as it was so new. The media were some of the first to get the vaccines as we were allowed to travel and work. I questioned whether I should take another but I did, as I had to work.

“This is possibly the start of the story. After the second and third vaccines I had weird feelings — pins and needles up my arms, across my face, it felt like my tongue was vibrating, my jaw was hardly moving and I had headaches. Now doctors say those are signs of mild allergic reactions.

“Did the Covid vaccines potentially affect my immune system and so, when I then got Covid, could my body not react? Was it immune failure, attacking itself? A lot of doctors I am seeing now feel that is what happened.”

Currie has waited to speak about his suffering partly because he was concerned about the tone of the conversation around Covid vaccines and the attention it could attract.

“I only posted on social media a couple of times about the pain and dizziness but there were thousands of people getting in touch with stories which sound similar to me,” he adds.

The UK’s Office for National Statistics reported that, in March 2023, around 1.9 million people living in private households in the UK were experiencing self-reported long Covid symptoms.

“That is just the ones who know,” he adds. “There might be loads of people like me who have been told they have got something like fibromyalgia or MS or some neurological condition, when actually it could be something post-vaccine or Covid itself.

“What I know is there are a lot of people suffering.”

There is frustration at being placed on a nine-month waiting list to access the NHS’ long Covid services and then being taken off it, for reasons that remain unclear to him.

He has paid for private treatment, speaking to around 30 doctors across the world and undergoing the same number of MRI scans, which has created a sense of claustrophobia.

Desperate to improve his quality of life, he underwent monoclonal antibody therapy a few months ago, injections which try to attack the spike proteins that exist in the body from Covid and the vaccines.

There is an offer on the table to embark on a riskier experimental treatment, which involves six weeks of triple antibiotics being infused intravenously into the bloodstream in the hope it can flush out any underlying bacterial infections, including Lyme disease, which has also been suggested as a possible contributor.

He has to weigh up the threat to his life but also his family finances, as his home has already been remortgaged.

“There is a point where you wonder if you have to stop searching, as it is so expensive. It is not easy with money. My wife is working really hard and we’re trying to give the kids the best life possible.

“Equally, when people are saying there is the possibility this might work, it is so hard not to try it. I was with a rheumatologist who told me there was someone in four weeks ago who was in a wheelchair and now they’re running after it. You get these stories. The doctors are telling the truth, but I know they might not work for me.

“A lot of our life savings have been spent on trying to find a way to live. My parents have been really supportive. They don’t want me to give up. It would be easy to give up and say this is probably long Covid but I want to live the best life I can.”

Currie has received support from so many people, including in the football industry. Among those who have been a great emotional support is TNT Sports presenter Lynsey Hipgrave, while Arsenal defender Kieran Tierney offered to come on a walk with him after hearing of his condition. Ally McCoist checks in once a month and the pair have been on a few walks together.

“You work with people for years and you get on well with them when you stand next to them but you don’t necessarily see them a lot,” says Currie.

“Steve McManaman is an absolute gent. Occasionally he gets on the train from up north down to London just because he knows I need someone to walk with for a couple of hours.

“He has been so, so kind offering me help and support.”

Last summer, Jake Humphrey chose to step down as BT Sport’s lead presenter, freeing up the coveted Champions League role which Currie would surely have been a contender for.

“Things were going well,” he says. “I’d like to think I would have been considered for some of the top jobs. Who knows?

“That was difficult at the start but it got so bad so quickly my real focus was on staying alive, so I didn’t give that an awful lot of thought. I still miss it but I am trying to appreciate what I can do.

‘That thought of, ‘That could have been me in that seat or standing pitchside’ hasn’t really been on my mind.”

Currie is indebted to TNT Sports for allowing him to continue working in a different role as a consultant, helping the production team and still interviewing footballers remotely.

A highlight was Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard gifting him a signed shirt after their chat, which has helped give him a sense of purpose again.

“I remember the doctors talking about ‘the one per cents’ and if you can keep on getting one per cent better every few months they add up. I think I have.

“There is no way I could have even sat here and spoken to you 18 months, a year or probably even six months ago.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get back to who I was. I have accepted that, but I am going to give it a bloody good try and find a way to keep living.”

(Top photo: Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)