Casey Stoner details how he copes today with ongoing chronic fatigue issue
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Stoner retired from MotoGP in 2012 and had already been racing with the early on-set of a variation of the condition.Years later he explained the debilitating effect that chronic fatigue could have.“Chronic fatigue is very difficult for anyone to understand, who doesn’t have this illness,” Stoner told Moto.it. “Because it’s not physical. It’s not a broken bone, you cannot see it.“I had so many people telling me to just get up, make yourself do things.“Mental strength was not a problem for me. I could make myself do anything I want, especially in racing and in very difficult situations. I can deal with this.“With chronic fatigue you have no control. No control of your thoughts or your body. You are completely tired all the time.“I am very grateful that, in the past two years or year-and-a-half, I have found some improvements.“Before then, it was very inconsistent. Month by month. Very low, then a good month, to be a little bit better.“But I never got to a good level until the past two years.“And still, even this year, I struggled a lot. Last year was better, in the middle of the year, but I got Covid three times between October and December so the body was low again.Related MotoGP legends have their say on what it takes to win a world title Stoner: ‘Ducati not great at handling riders, they put stress on situations’“It takes a long time to recover, to heal.“Day by day, we have to understand where the energy levels are, and try to react to this.“But it’s very difficult to make any plans, to make any goals.“As soon as you do this, and you have a difficult period, it’s a waste of time because you have to cancel everything and try to recover the energy.“It’s frustrating because there’s nothing you can do to improve the situation, only to be healthy as best you can, and positive on the mental side.”Stoner, who won the MotoGP title in 2007 with Ducati before the Italian manufacturer slumped into a 15-year winless run, detailed how chronic fatigue hampers him today, at the age of 37.“In the first two years, I was expecting to beat this illness,” he said.“There’s nothing in my life where I haven’t been able to find the problem, find the situation, and try to move forward.“After two years I realised there is nothing I can do, nothing I did which improved the situation.“Already I was healthy, I ate well, I knew how to look after myself. It didn’t make it better.“The best thing I learned to do was to take pressure off myself.“In the end, we stopped doing everything and took time for myself to get the body and the mind more quiet, so I didn’t have to think about how many things.“I’m still searching, still looking for something which makes a big difference.But, at this moment, there isn’t a miracle cure.”
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