Star Tribune
Fairview clinic responds to post-COVID rise in fatiguing disorder in kids
A new M Health Fairview clinic is confronting an exhausting disorder that has afflicted more children since the pandemic and caused alarming spikes in heart rate, blood pressure and breathing.
Dr. Matthew Ambrose said it is disheartening to see so many more cases of the condition known as POTS. But the increase at least spurred awareness, and accelerated plans for a clinic in Minneapolis that can better diagnose and treat children who in the past were dismissed.
“Sometimes they’re being told outright that they are making it up, that it’s all in their head,” said Ambrose, a pediatric cardiologist and a leader of the clinic. “It’s really dispiriting to hear. They can’t even be at school because they are too tired.”
POTS emerged prior to the pandemic in about one in 500 children and young adults, usually after infectious diseases triggered aggressive responses by their immune systems. So doctors weren’t shocked when POTS became more of a problem during the pandemic. An estimated 96% of Minnesota children had been infected by the end of 2022 with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, based on a federal review of pediatric blood samples, creating a huge risk pool for the development of the disorder.
The condition bears similarities to long COVID, the lingering cognitive and physical problems that people experience after coronavirus infections, but with at least one distinguishing characteristic. POTS is short for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and it is defined by a severe and immediate increase in heart rate whenever people switch positions by sitting or standing up.
Anna Burt, 14, was a bubbly dancer, skier and cheerleader from Sioux Falls, S.D., when she was diagnosed with COVID-19 in October 2020. The resulting exhaustion left her struggling to walk, and often was marked by a pounding heartbeat that raced up to 160 beats per minute.
“Its like a big drum,” the girl said.
Burt was first taken to M Health Fairview’s clinic for long COVID, because she was experiencing the characteristic “brain fog,” along with stomach pain and dizziness. She struggled to sit up, even to ride in the car to the doctor’s office.
“She really was trapped in the house,” said her mother, Jody Burt.
Her POTS diagnosis became clear after the family met Ambrose, who had observed cases prior to the pandemic and had taken a clinical and research interest in the condition. Just finding a clinician who believed Anna and her family was vital, her mother said. “We weren’t getting that. Most of the time, we were getting, ‘its just constipation.'”
Depression and anxiety often occur alongside POTS, so much that they are often mistaken as the causes of children’s lethargy, research has shown.
Drinking water can reduce POTS flareups, and exercise and physical therapy can help patients regain function, Ambrose said. But patients often need poorly understood and even controversial medication regimens. Naltrexone treats opioid addiction but appears in low doses to reduce POTS-related fatigue. Steroids regulate water, and sodium levels and can prevent or reduce attacks.
Beta blocker drugs that lower blood pressure were thought to worsen POTS, but recent studies suggest they help. POTS is related to the autonomic nervous system, or the portion of the nervous system that controls subconscious functions such as heart rate and body temperature.
The drugs temper the body’s reaction to signals from that system, Ambrose said. “It’s like being at a rock concert but wearing hearing protection.”
The clinic’s goal is to package together treatments that families struggle to access separately, and to keep tabs on patients through online check-ups and counseling. By following patients over time, the clinic also hopes to prove which treatments work best and how much progress children with POTS can make.
“When I tell people I think we can get them to a place where they are fully functional, I mean it,” Ambrose said. “But it does take work and time and trial and error … and an Avengers team of physical therapists.”
The clinic sometimes looks for little successes, Ambrose added, giving fluid infusions to one patient so she had the energy just to go to prom.
Anna Burt has progressed from a wheelchair to crutches to walking, but she still can’t run without exhaustion. She has replaced old pursuits, trying swimming and archery. She tried playing with slime toys to alleviate boredom, but they irritated her skin. So she invented a non-irritating version that she plans to sell under the brand Rainbow Slimes.
She said her pain and symptoms are under better control, as long as she keeps up with therapy exercises and remembers her medication. She rides a recumbent bicycle for exercise and has returned to school for art class. Changes day to day are imperceptible, but Anna said she has made long-term improvements and dreams of being active.
“Sometimes I get sad. I’m just tired of doing this over and over and over again, but I wouldn’t change the experience I had,” she said. “Definitely a lot of parts suck, like most of it, 99% sucks. But I wouldn’t be who I am now without it.”
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
North Minneapolis Halloween party for kids brings families together
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan