Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Balance, vision issues are 'scary for me'

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to continue his racing career, but it sounds as if a return to the car is not in his immediate future.

Earnhardt told his Dirty Mo Radio podcast network Monday his concussion-like symptoms — specifically, a problem with his vision — aren’t resolving themselves as fast as he wants.

“I’d love to race more,” Earnhardt told “The Dale Jr. Download” in a 58-minute episode. “In my mind, my plan is to race more. I have plans to keep going. I’ll worry about that when I’m well. My doctors are confident they can make me stronger than I was before this event.”

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This event, he said, started with a crash during the June race at Michigan International Speedway. Though he did not have any symptoms at the time — and even took a vacation to Germany and drove in several races afterward — he began to have problems with his “gaze stability” and his balance.

Earnhardt said he currently has difficulty focusing on objects far away when he moves his head, which was never the case with concussions he had earlier in his career.

“This is scary for me because of the way it’s been different,” he said. “I’m having balance issues; I’ve never had balance issues before. The eye issues with the stability — I’ve never had that before. It didn’t begin at the event; it started weeks later and came on very slowly, very gradually and continued to progress until it sort of stopped and stayed where it is.

“I don’t know what that tells me about how long this process is going to be. I felt like I had a good understanding of dealing with concussions in the past, but this is certainly a new one.”

Earnhardt missed his third consecutive race this weekend, with Jeff Gordon substituting for him again at Pocono Raceway. Though Hendrick Motorsports has yet to announce plans for Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen International, Earnhardt indicated it could take some time before he’s ready to drive again.

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The 41-year-old’s symptoms have plateaued in the last couple weeks, Earnhardt said. He goes to bed each night hoping to wake up in the morning and feel like there’s been some progress, that he could feel some sort of difference or improvement.

Most days, though, there hasn’t been.

“You wake up, you open your eyes, you sit up and you walk to the bathroom and you know immediately that nothing is different, nothing is better,” he said. “In the past, you could always feel this improvement.”

Those days, Earnhardt said, are the ones where he gets really frustrated. He’ll reach out to his doctor and say, “Tell me you can fix this. I need to hear that again today.”

The response: Yes, doctors can fix it, but it will take time. Though Earnhardt is impatient, he’s three weeks into what can often be a long-term process for those suffering from his symptoms. He has visual and physical exercises to do each day, and Earnhardt checks in with doctors frequently (his next appointment is Tuesday, where he’ll meet with five specialists).

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Earnhardt believes his balance problems are related to the struggles with his eyes, and that he’ll feel better once his vision is fixed.

“Look, you’ve got to realize this might be a process,” Earnhardt said doctors have told him. “I will go to get evaluated every few weeks and each time I go, they’ll adjust the treatment accordingly.”

One part of his treatment is exposing himself to public situations. Anxiety causes the vision problem to worsen, so Earnhardt’s doctor wants him going out — like to a restaurant or the JR Motorsports race shop — and then returning home to recover from the flare-ups.

When he goes somewhere unfamiliar and there’s a lot of movement, Earnhardt said, “that drives the symptoms pretty heavily.”

Ultimately, Earnhardt said he’s choosing to be as transparent as possible because he wants to tell everyone what he’s going through. No one can see any of his symptoms or detect anything different by talking to him, so he has to let people know in order to explain why he’s not racing.

“It worries me people don’t know what I’m going through and dealing with,” he said. “I want them to know why I can’t drive and why I can’t race. You feel pretty helpless … it’s not a good feeling.”

Earnhardt said he even wished people could attend his doctor visits so they could hear first-hand what’s going on with him.

“I wouldn’t be (so transparent) if I was 25 years old just getting going and thinking about how I want to race for another 20 years,” he said. “… I’d be frightened to death at 25 years old going through this. At 41, I think it’s important for me and my peace of mind — and it might help somebody.”

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck