Jack Conan felt like he had aged 10 years in just months as he revealed it took a long time for him to get over a hormone imbalance that left him at his wit's end.
The Leinster and Ireland back row was confounded that, having prided himself on his fitness and having felt stronger than ever on the 2021 Lions tour of South Africa, within six months he suffered unexplained power outages that left him knackered.
"I remember vividly being out on Rosemount, where we train," recalled the back row. "I was running around and I’m thinking, 'There has to be something wrong with me'.
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"I felt like I had aged 10 years in the space of two or three months. It just felt like someone had turned my power down massively - I was at 60% the whole time.
"I highlighted it with the coaches because they obviously knew I was getting these tests but I wasn't performing terribly, I wasn't going out and having terrible games.
"I felt and probably objectively as well that I wasn't at the level I had been previously. So that adds to your mental narrative about it all.
"I was frustrated because I had felt so good and then I wasn't. I suppose a bit of me was comparing it constantly to previous, 'I used to feel good, I used to have a lot of energy and feel better around the place, I used to be in a better place' and all these things.
"But that wasn't helping me in the moment so I tried to banish those thoughts.
"When you're sitting at home and getting more and more frustrated with it, I definitely thought it more, about the way I used to be and how I used to feel."
Blood tests came back clear and it wasn't until he had a scan on a neck injury that a cyst on his pituitary gland was detected in his brain.
"It's common enough," Conan explained. "I was like, 'Jesus it’s a miracle that we have found this'.
"When they’re scanning your neck, they scan all up to the base of your brain and your pituitary gland sits deep between your eyes.
"Two days later I got the results of the bloods which showed I had massive imbalances in some of my hormones. So that was the start of figuring out what was the cause
of it.
"From then on, it slowly rectified.
“Even after that, they reckoned it had been there for a long time probably. I don’t know whether it had grown or whether it had taken time for it to have an effect on me.
"That was the most satisfying thing, just to get there, to finally know. Because when the results were telling me that there was nothing wrong with me, I was thinking, 'Am I just in my own head here?'."
Conan went on medication but it took time for him to get back to his best physical shape. Mentally, however, it took longer again.
"It took a long time to get to where I was, so probably it wasn't a quick fix and obviously it's all above board with the medicine I'm taking," he said.
"But even then when I wasn't feeling it as much I was still thinking about it and mentally not as focused because I was worried about other things.
"I wasn't worried about the moment in front of me and what I was doing on the pitch.
"Of course I was nailed on with my detail and stuff but I wasn't 100% with staying in the moment because my mind was constantly dragged back to how I felt.
"That was very frustrating, it took me a long time to park it and leave it behind."
The 30-year-old felt much stronger on Ireland's victorious tour of New Zealand last summer but he admits that it wasn't until the Six Nations, and a series of chats with Gary Keegan, that he honed in again on the specifics of his role.
"I got my shot against Italy to finally get back in there but I was too worried about all the detail instead of the specifics of the things that allow you to be good and get ahead of the game," he admitted.
"Feeling good was one step but then mentally let it go and be more in the here and now was the next step, which nearly took just as long.
"The difference between the Italy week and the Scotland week was huge for me. I was able to, through Gary Keegan and through work I was doing with him, just narrow my focus.
"I hadn’t spoken to him that much about the mindset of the detail, I’d spoken to him previously about the energy issues and all that. and he gave some great tools about just worrying about your big rock - your big focus is not a really wide attention span, it’s about narrowing your focus and lasering in on three or four specific things that allow you to be present in the moment instead of worrying about every single facet. "
Conan starred off the bench against Scotland and England at the end of Ireland's Grand Slam charge and now he is looking forward to the Champions Cup semi-final clash with Toulouse at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.
"I think lads are really excited about the challenge because you want to beat the best to win a competition and they’re right up there with the best club sides in the world," he said.
"They’ve got danger men all over the park, don’t they? I know everybody talks about Dupont and what he can do but really from 1-23 they’ve incredible athletes all over the place so we have to be our utmost best, and that’s what we’re building for.
"Lads are really, really excited for the challenge. Hopefully we’ll get a decent day for it and we can be at our best but yeah it’s a massive challenge but we’re excited and I think we’re in the best place we’ve ever been to go and do it.
"They’ve been better for the game last year in the Aviva and I think they’ll probably change up a few things and how they defend," he said.
"That’ll be a different challenge altogether compared to what we faced over the last few years."
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