When I was in 7th grade I was a National Champion Cheerleader and had all the friends that a girl could ask for. I had it made - or so I thought! It never dawned on me that one day I would not even be able to stand - let alone cheer for my school team!

     I started passing out 7-8 times a day. No one knew why. At first everyone brushed it off and thought that I must have diabetes or low iron levels or something. My Mom took me to our family doctor and he did lab work and the tests were all negative. He did notice that my heart rate was very high. He sent me to a Pediatric Cardiologist. They put me on heart monitors and ran tests and basically everything still came out fine. I had the doctors baffled. Then they did a tilt table test on me. All I wanted at that point was to go back to school, be with my friends, and go back to Cheerleading. Naive! During the tilt I passed out within 2 minutes and my heart stopped for 10 seconds. They narrowed it down and said that I had "autonomic dysfunction."

     By 8th grade I was still passing out 5-6 times a day and I had most of the other terrible symptoms of POTS (dizzy, noise/light sensitivity, brain fog, mood swings, fatigue, exercise intolerance, nausea, chest pain, weakness, migraines etc.) and the school said "Enough!" and put me on Homebound Teaching. This broke my heart. Worst of all they would not let me do Cheerleading anymore. I thought my world was coming to an end! I found out that I didn't have the true friends that I thought I had. My whole life changed overnight. My friends went on without me and never looked back.

     After research we found Dr. Phillip Low, who specializes in Autonomic Dysfunction at Mayo Clinic. We drove all the way from South Carolina to Minnesota to see this doctor. He ran test after test on me and I felt like a lab rat. He diagnosed me with POTS and put me on medications, salt and fluids. It was not easy! It took lots of hard work and we had to adjust my medications and I had to adjust my lifestyle.

     I never thought I would be able to say this but I am fine now! I have not passed out in a year and my POTS symptoms are much, much better! I am getting on with my life and I have new and better friends now. I am a different person...a new improved version of my former self. So for those of you who think that you will never get better...think again! Look at me! I am living proof that you will get better! It's a long road but you will get there!

     If you want to talk to someone who understands what you are going through...I am a member of DYNA and my name is Kim (you can get my email address through the Youth Network Membership). And if you're a friend of someone impacted with Autonomic Dysfunction - please stick by them and you may learn something about true friendships!