After my daughter had COVID-19 last year, I thought the worst was behind us. She bounced back quickly—at first. But a few weeks later, everything changed. She would stand up and suddenly feel dizzy or weak. Her heart would race as if she had just sprinted across the yard, even though she had only walked from the couch to the kitchen. She was exhausted all the time, struggled to focus, and sometimes even said the room was spinning. At first, I thought it was just part of recovering from the virus. But it didn’t go away. That’s when we first heard a new term:
POTS—Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It’s something many kids are developing after COVID—and something I had never heard of until it hit our family.
What Is POTS?
POTS affects how the body controls heart rate and blood pressure, especially when standing up. For kids like mine, it means their heart races too fast when they move from lying down or sitting to standing. That sudden rush can make them feel dizzy, tired, nauseous, and sometimes like they’re going to faint. And here’s the hard part—it can happen to a child who looks completely fine. From the outside, my daughter looked healthy. But inside, she was struggling every day just to get through simple tasks. Getting a diagnosis was a relief in some ways—it gave a name to part of what she was going through.
But it didn’t cover everything. Long COVID is complex. It’s bigger than just POTS. There were still symptoms we couldn’t fully explain, things that didn’t fit neatly into any one diagnosis. And that made the road even harder.
Parenting Through the Unknown
Living with long COVID and POTS means symptoms that wax and wane. Good days and bad days blur together. Sometimes it feels like there’s no real progress at all—just surviving. Finding medical care can be overwhelming. Specialists are booked months out. Some doctors dismiss the symptoms or act like it’s all in your child’s head. It often feels like you’re piecing together care by yourself, learning as you go, while your child is hurting and the world keeps moving on without understanding. As a parent, you’re used to solving problems—you patch up scrapes, you ease fevers. But here, there’s no quick fix. You have to watch your child suffer and know there’s only so much you can do. You carry so much:
- Making endless appointments
- Fighting for accommodations at school
- Comforting your child through heartbreaking setbacks
- Holding it together while hiding your own exhaustion and fear
There are no neat lessons here. No clean victories. Sometimes things don’t get better quickly—or at all. Sometimes loving your child through it, fiercely and steadily, is the only thing you can do.
The Ups and Downs
Some days, my daughter is full of energy—laughing, playing, feeling almost like herself again. Other days, she can barely lift her head from the pillow. And when she got COVID again, it shattered the small bits of progress we had fought so hard for. It felt like starting all over. Watching her body go through it again was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced as a mom. Since then, we’ve become very cautious. We mask in crowded places. We skip big gatherings when we need to. We say no to things that don’t feel safe—even when it’s hard. It’s not the life I imagined for her. It’s not easy. But it’s what love looks like right now.
A Message for Other Parents
If your child is living with long COVID or POTS, and you’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, heartbroken—you are not alone. This road is harder than most people realize. It’s not a straight line. It’s not a series of inspiring milestones. It’s surviving endless waiting rooms. It’s comforting a child whose body keeps betraying them. It’s carrying the invisible weight of trying to make a broken system work for your family. You can love your child with everything you have and still feel helpless. You can fight like hell for them and still question if you’re doing enough. You can hope for better days without pretending every day will be better. You are not weak for feeling tired. You are not failing because you can’t fix it. You are carrying an invisible burden with incredible strength. Whatever today looks like in your house—whether it’s laughter, tears, or just getting through—you are doing enough. You are doing more than enough. We see you. We are you. And even when it feels impossibly heavy, you are not carrying it alone.
A Few Things That Made Life a Little Easier
I’m not a doctor—just a mom who’s been walking this road with her kid. Here are a few things that made our days a little more manageable. They’re not cures, just small tools that made tough days a little softer:
Resources We Love
Here are some products and resources that have helped us manage POTS symptoms:
- Non-Plastic Water Bottles for Kids:
