Former Buffalo Bills star Thurman Thomas says he has mood swings from concussion

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The former Buffalo Bills star, who turns 50 next month, said at a concussion summit in Canada that he suffers from mood swings and that his condition has worsened.

"Still to this day, I can't control my mood swings," he said at the District School Board of Niagara's international summit on concussions, via the Niagara Falls (Canada) Review. "On so many days, I have to apologize to my family for them. I thank God that I have a family that understands the things that I've been through over my 13-year [professional] career, and even after my 14 or 15 years that I've been retired. They all understand that with my mood swings, sometimes I just can't help it."

Thomas told the crowd that he had not yet publicly discussed his symptoms.

"One thing that I realized is that discussing the effects of concussions and the reality of the situation doesn't make me less of a man, less tough, less loyal to the National Football League, a less love for the game," he said. "All it means is that I'm not an ignorant fool, and that I don't ignore factual evidence that this is happening to not only football players, but [other athletes]." Thomas carries notes with him because he often can't keep focused, and he told a story about getting lost on a familiar road a few years ago.

"I didn't know where I was, and I didn't know what I was doing," he said. "I had to make the most difficult call I've ever made. I had to pull over on the highway, call my wife and explain to her the events that just happened. She said, 'You need to come back home.' I knew that there was a problem."

The Bills' all-time leading rusher, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007, Thomas soon saw a doctor to assess his condition.

After an MRI, the doctor said Thomas' frontal lobe of his brain was "similar to someone who has fallen off the top of a house, on to the front of his head, or going through a windshield of a car several times.

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