Brian Austin Green Says He Spent Over 4 Years Recovering from Stroke-Like Symptoms Caused By His Diet

Brian Austin Green is reflecting on the health challenges he's faced.

In the latest episode of Cheryl Burke's Sex, Likes and Spray Tans podcast, Green, 50, opened up to the Dancing with the Stars talent about how he overcame a major health complication by changing his diet. 

During the episode, titled "Ready to Rumba with Brian Austin Green," the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum spoke about meeting his fiancée Sharna Burgess at a time when both of them had put in an effort to become better versions of themselves.

“She had been really working on herself hard. She’s been single for almost five years,” he said of Burgess, while noting he’d been single for two years and “aggressively in therapy.”

“I’d spent four and a half years recovering from stroke-like symptoms without ever having had a stroke but I couldn’t speak,” Green began before Burke asked him the specifics of his diagnosis.

The Desperate Housewives talent shared that doctors told him he had vertigo and ulcerative colitis, and that the combination caused him to be bedridden for three months. He added that none of the specialists he was seeing at the time could figure out what was behind his illnesses. 

“Then these neurological things started happening after the vertigo, and that was — it was four and a half years of my life. I got to the point where I shuffled like I was a 90-year-old man,” Green said. 

“I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write,” the Anger Management actor continued of his past health complications. 

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Burke asked if Green’s symptoms had anything to do with an accident he and ex-wife Megan Fox were involved in, seemingly referring to a December 2014 collision in which their vehicle was struck by a drunk driver. 

“No. It was dietary,” he replied. 

Burke added that “the press has it all wrong.” Green then admitted that his situation could come off as “confusing.”

“It was all undiagnosed by Western medicine, so I ended up having to finally find a doctor that is much more into, like, kinesiology and Eastern medicine,” the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles alum continued. 

Once Green was able to connect with the new physician, he was told he had “internal inflammation from gluten and dairy.” Stress was also a factor in his sickness.

He added that despite being active his entire life and having a doctor at Cedars-Sinai who was one of the top neurologists in the country who would consult with his colleagues, nearly 200 blood tests and two MRIs still left his health care provider stunned as to what the issue could be. 

“I had such brain fog that I reintroduced my best friend of like 25 plus years to my sister who he had also known for 25 plus years,” Green confessed. He shared that even reading Dr. Seuss books to his children would prove to be difficult. 

Green is father to five kids. He shares son Kassius Lijah, 21, with ex-girlfriend Vanessa Marcil and sons Noah Shannon, 11, Bodhi Ransom, 9, and Journey River, 7, with Fox. In June 2022, the actor welcomed his fifth child, Zane Walker, with Burgess.

After Zane Walker was born, Green told PEOPLE that his older sons were excited about their newest sibling. "They check on Sharna every day and they rub her belly and talk to the baby," he said. "They're counting down the days! [The baby] is definitely coming into a super warm household and family and he'll be surrounded by a lot of love. It's exciting."