POTS After a Head Injury: A Teen's Recovery, in 3D
Noah is 15. A cold virus made him pass out, and he hit his head when he fell. Since then he's had severe migraines, heavy pressure in his head, dizziness, air hunger, and exhaustion. He missed 4 months of school, and now he makes it a couple of hours a day.
What Noah was told: POTS
Noah gets a thorough workup at a clinic that specializes in POTS, and he's treated for POTS, with the plan built around his heart rate. He also has an autism diagnosis. He still can't make it through a school day.
What we found
Both sides of his brain lose blood flow upright, the right side much more, and thinking makes it worse. His eyes, his sense of touch, and his coordination show a brain that can't read his body clearly.
His brain can't read his body clearly enough to run it
The head injury left Noah's brain with a patchy, lopsided picture of his body. He feels one side differently from the other, his coordination stutters, and his eyes cross when they lose a target. A brain working from bad information can't steer blood to itself, so the flow drops, most on the right, and his heart races to make up for it. His heart rate is high because the blood flow to his brain is low.
How we got Noah better (2 weeks in the clinic, then a home program)
Noah's plan aimed at one thing: giving his brain a clearer picture of his body, so it could start running things again.
- Head and neck position sense (Input to the head and neck). First, head and neck position sense. We give his brain precise input about where his head and neck are.
- Balancing his 2 sides (A bigger dose on the side he feels less). Second, his body sense. He feels one side of his body less than the other, so that side gets a bigger dose of input until the 2 sides match.
- Eye exercises (Finding where he is in space). Third, his eyes. Judging depth was hard for him, so we used eye exercises to help him find where he is in space.
- Simple exercises at home (Simple, and dosed to his testing). Then he takes simple exercises home. They may not look like much. What makes them work is picking the right ones, at the right dose, based on what his testing measured.
Noah, 2 weeks later
- A few days in, head turns no longer cut his blood flow
- Math task upright: 118% left and 110% right, up from 90% and 46%
- Eyes steady in the dark
By the retest, his migraines, the heaviness in his head, and his lightheadedness were easing. He took simple exercises home and kept improving. He's back at school, running and swimming, without setting off flares.
Watch the case video
