Eight weeks later, the real nightmare began. Rhys and Emma complained of fatigue, headaches and an occasional racing heart rate that could exceed 100 beats a minute and surge over 160, Krol said. Her daughter was losing her sense of taste and complained that meat tasted metallic. She still hasn’t fully regained her ability to taste and doesn’t feel like eating, Krol said.
Both children struggle with memory issues—“brain fog,” doctors call it—that make school difficult. They have trouble focusing in virtual, online classes. Emma, once an A student, is now getting Cs. “I’m really tired all the time, and I’m forgetting things,” Emma said.
Rhys has had it worse with fatigue. Krol once found him asleep on the kitchen floor. He couldn’t recall how he got there. If he’s standing for more than an hour, his feet swell and turn red. Struggling to stay awake during virtual school sessions, he’d forget to turn in assignments after he completed them.
The boy had to transfer from Henry Ford High School in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights to the district’s Alternative Learning Center to get caught up. Even so, Rhys, who lost his train of thought at times during an interview, said he may be unable to finish all of the requirements and will do virtual summer classes. “Because of the amount of credits I need, I might have to do ninth grade again,” he said.
Even for children who don’t struggle as long as the Krols, Covid can still be a travail. Kathryn Rankin, a 15 year-old high school sophomore in Las Vegas, tested positive Feb. 23. Two days later, she had migraines and light sensitivity so severe she couldn't look at her computer screen for remote learning, said her mother, Rochelle.
By day 14, the headaches were gone but Kathryn was too fatigued to get out of bed. Repeated trips to the emergency room and doctors have yielded few answers. Kathryn is slowly improving, but her grades have suffered and she gave up on swimming for the year because of fatigue. More than 80 days after testing positive, she has to wear compression socks at all times to avoid leg pain. “I'm seeing improvement in her slowly,” Rochelle said. “But as a teenager, three to six months is a lot of time.”
Edwards, who is running the new University Hospitals clinic, estimates about 1% of children who have Covid come down with long-term illness, though good data are scarce. She estimates there are more than 100 in Ohio.
Given the many unanswered questions, Edwards created the clinic with a multidisciplinary team of experts within the University Hospitals system. The clinic will include about a dozen specialists to cover the wide range of MIS-C and long-haul problems. Patients can go to any location and have their case reviewed by pulmonologists, cardiologists, dieticians or whomever else is needed.
“I’m hoping that by establishing a more systematic approach, we can provide more support and get them better,” Edwards said.
High-dose steroids have helped some patients, she said, and doctors have discovered that vaccinations have helped others shake off long-haul symptoms faster. But “it doesn’t appear to work for everybody.”
Anxiety and depression often haunt long-haulers, said Daiza, the family medicine specialist at Henry Ford Health Systems. She said she has prescribed more medication for both conditions while treating Covid patients than she has in her entire career.
Emma Krol has developed severe anxiety, with nightmares and panic attacks. She’s terrified of getting the virus again. The entire family is in lockdown until they’re all vaccinated.
“Given what it did to us,” her mother said. “I don’t know what would happen if we caught it a second time.”
--With assistance from Anna Edney, Alexander Ebert and Riley Griffin.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.