alison brie health© Photo: Getty Images

Alison Brie makes scary health revelation - 'I was hysterical'

The GLOW star is married to Dave Franco

US Deputy Editor
May 13, 2022

Alison Brie has opened up about a terrifying childhood ordeal which left her temporarily blind. 

The Roar actress made the revelation on the latest episode of Hypochondriactor with Sean Hayes and Dr. Priyanka Wali.

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Speaking to the hosts, Alison shared her frightening story which happened when she was seven years old and hit her head on concrete after running into another girl in the playground.

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"I was a really petite kid and I was just running across the playground and not looking and I bumped into another little girl in my class, who was like four times bigger than me," she said.

Her sister, Lauren, took her to the nurses station but the treatment she received wasn't what she needed.

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"As I'm walking up to the nurse's office, I just feel a little out of it. I clearly had a concussion. But I don't know this at seven or eight, but I just feel out of it and foggy, but I can still see."

Alison feared she would never see again 

The nurse had gone home and the women who were in the office told her to lay down and close her eyes. 

Dr. Priyanka explained that this is the worst way to treat a concussion or head injury and said: "You want to keep the person awake because if they lose consciousness, it could be a sign that there's more serious underlying bleeding."

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Alison said she began forgetting what had happened and her sister was "freaking out" because she kept asking her the same things. 

Alison and Dave have been married since 2017

When their father arrived to pick Alison and Lauren up, the actress soon lost her vision. "My dad arrives and I sort of don't remember anything," she added. "Like the next part of my memory is, I'm in the backseat of my dad's car and boom. I can't see a thing.

"It's sort of like how, when you close your eyes, it's black, but you can a little bit see light and shadows."

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"I was hysterical," she continued. "I start hysterically crying because I could feel myself trying to open my eyes as wide as possible.

Alison says she never takes her sight for granted now

"It wasn't computing. And I think that was part of the hystericalness too, was like, 'Oh my God.' Realizing that I was blind. And then sort of just being like, 'Now I'm just blind?'"

Alison said they performed a CAT scan on her and doctors said: "If her vision doesn't come back in 12 hours, she'll likely be blind for the rest of her life."

She woke up ten hours later, with her worried mom and dad by her side. "I wake up in a hospital bed and my parents like shoot towards me in my hospital bed," Alison explained. "Like they're hysterical and asking, 'Can you see me?' Which to me, and at this point I sort of have no recollection. You know, I like wake up in this hospital bed. I can see everybody. I'm like, 'Yeah?'"

Her experience has made Alison more appreciative of her eyesight and she admits she delights in visuals more than she maybe would have had she not lost her sight. 

"It sounds so lame. But I do think like I'm constantly taking in visuals of things all the time," she said.

And as for how her vision is nowadays? "It's almost 20/20. It's like 20 and 19 and three-quarters. I've had great vision ever since."

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