For years, Debby Ryan has dealt with severe migraines — but a “life-altering” brain injury made things much worse.
During a recent appearance on Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals, the 33-year-old revealed that after sustaining four separate concussions throughout her life, her fifth was the result of a terrifying trauma involving “sustained shaking over a minute of time.”
The incident left her in a neurological rehab center for six months. To help get her brain “back online,” she underwent what she described as a “fringe science treatment,” but ultimately had to accept that certain cognitive abilities “just did not come back.”
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Battling ‘Hellish’ Migraines
Even before that fifth concussion forced her into a half-year recovery period, Ryan dealt with severe chronic head pain. She described herself as a long-time “migraine warrior,” explaining that the final injury severely amplified those symptoms and made them truly “hellish.”
“Quite often, the world is really loud and too bright,” she continued. “I can see better and think better with my eyes closed. The visual data I am taking in can be so distracting and so loud. The migraines were significantly worsened by that. If there is a thing that can make things really singular, I like that.”
Rebuilding Her Life
Coming to terms with those lasting symptoms wasn’t easy. Ryan said she now refers to herself as “pre-incident Debby and post-incident Debby.”
The former Disney Channel star — who built a fanbase on The Suite Life on Deck and Jessie before starring in Netflix’s Insatiable and the 2026 drama The Sun Never Sets — had to learn how to navigate work and life while managing her ongoing recovery.
Through the hardest moments of rehabilitation, she relied on her inner circle, including her husband, Josh Dun, and their 8-month-old daughter, Felix. She acknowledged how difficult the process must have been for Dun, admitting she couldn’t imagine what it was like to see someone who looked and sounded like his wife but whose behavior was suddenly completely different.
“I feel really fortunate that I have an amazing team of people around me who sort of reminded me who I am and was, and also held a lot of space for that to change, potentially permanently, and love me through that,” she said.
