AFL Daily: Rolling football news from across Australia for Thursday, April 4, 2019

North Melbourne stopper Ben Jacobs has revealed the full extent of mystery head and neck issues that have kept him out of the game since last July. Symptoms have included severe face and neck pain, blocked ears and sleep apnea. Plus catch up on all today's footy news.

NORTH Melbourne super-stopper Ben Jacobs is convinced he has a lot of AFL football ahead of him, despite revealing he has no timeline on a return from a “perfect storm” of head/neck issues that have kept him out of the game since last July.

 

Speaking for the first time about his ordeal since suffering “whiplash” in Round 11 against Brisbane last year, Jacobs saidhe may never know the true cause behind the myriad of issues he has faced over the past 10 months.

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Jacobs detailed how he

FELT “spaced out” in the weeks after the incident with his symptoms including severe face and neck pain, headaches, blocked ears and a feeling of pressure in his head.

HAD surgery to repair a sinus issue and to burn off a nerve block in his neck to help his situation.

HAS been fitted with a daytime mouthguard to help realign his jaw as well as a night-guard to stop the debilitating sleep apnea that has troubled him for months.

WAS initially treated as having delayed concussion symptoms and later sinusitis, with countless specialist appointments unable to identify the root-cause of the issue.

But the 27-year-old has never thought about retirement, saying he still plans to be back “hopefully sooner rather than later.”

“I feel like I can pick it up when I am healthy again,” Jacobs explained in a North Melbourne podcast to be released on Friday. “My body hasn’t been battered and bruised too much … I feel like I have plenty of give.”

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Jacobs may “never know” the real cause of his issues: “I could have had a bit of concussion at the start, and right now that is gone, and there could be some stuff from the jaw and the neck.

“I had none of these symptoms before I hit my head (at Marvel Stadium), so since then it has been a combination of things.

“I just had my head knocked on the ground … whether that has flared up the jaw, the nerves in the head, the neck … it is the perfect storm type of thing.

“To say it is one thing, we can’t be sure. I can’t rule anything out.”

North Melbourne's Ben Jacobs doesn't have a timeline on his AFL return.

The sleep apnea was one of the hardest things to deal with as he was not getting the required rest at night.

“You kind of stop breathing a certain amount of times … normal is like couple of times, but I am like 10 to 12 times.”

But the recent addition of the nightguard has given him hope that his recovery is on the right pathway.

Originally published as AFL Daily: Rolling football news from across Australia for Thursday, April 4, 2019