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| Pots Disease |
Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is both
mystifying and misunderstood by nearly everyone, including most doctors.
A relatively new disease, POTS still lacks a set of universally
followed, predefined treatment guidelines. (This often results in
confusion and frustration among patients and their physicians.) Instead
of regurgitating the little information about POTS that can be found
in medical textbooks, we decided to survey POTS patients (over 900 of
them).
By combining the largest survey of POTS patients ever conducted,
our experience treating the disease, and the most recent medical
literature on the topic, we hope to help demystify the medical mystery
that is POTS.
This guide – which we’re calling the POTS Center – is
intended to be the most comprehensive online resource on POTS. The POTS
Center will be constantly updated to reflect the most current literature
related to POTS.
This page includes an overview of the disease, along
with the most notable findings in our survey. Please don’t forget that
each section has a page dedicated to it, where you can find more
in-depth information. All content is written by one of MyHeart’s
volunteer cardiologists and then reviewed by at least two others.
So without further ado, we welcome you to the POTS Center –
a small place on the internet where we combine real patient feedback
with published information and our own experience treating the disease –
with the hope we can make the lives of those suffering from POTS a
little easier.
What Is POTS? A Brief Definition
POTS is a form of dysautonomia that affects the flow of blood
through the body, thereby causing dizziness when standing. Technically,
someone has POTS if their heart rate increases by 30 beats per minute or
their heart rate is greater than 120 beats per minute within 10 minutes
of standing up.
The autonomic nervous system regulates involuntary actions that allow
the body to function. When we stand, for example, the body needs to
accommodate an entire set of processes to allow this. Upon standing, a
significant amount of blood automatically falls to the lower body.
Autonomic reflexes ensure that blood gets appropriately distributed to
the upper body by changes such as muscle tone, vessel tone, heart rate,
and pumping responses in the heart.
There
is a range of diseases that affect the autonomic nervous system known
as dysautonomia. POTS is one of them. In POTS, there is increase in
heart rate and light-headedness on standing, as well as exercise
intolerance, fatigue, and a multitude of other symptoms. POTS may be so
severe that even normal everyday activities usually taken for granted
such as bathing or walking may be severely limited.
Although anyone can be affected by postural tachycardia syndrome, it
is by far most prevalent among woman in their teens, twenties, and
thirties. There is a wide spectrum of POTS-like disorders that falls
under the umbrella of dysautonomia, several of which do not have the
increase in heart rate.
Symptoms
POTS is most commonly known for causing dizziness upon
standing. In some cases, patients actually faint when trying to stand,
earning POTS the nickname of “the fainting disease”. However, dizziness
and fainting are just a few of the many often debilitating symptoms POTS
patients battle on a daily basis. Additional symptoms include:
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Abdominal pain
- Chronic Pain (General)
- Chest Pains
- Heart Palpitations
- Fatigue
- Shortness of Breath
- Insomnia
- Brain Fog
- Sweating Abnormalities
- Weakness
- Bladder Dysfunction
- Tremors
According to our survey, fatigue (95.2%) is the most common symptom –
which isn’t surprising considering the commonality of POTS and Chronic
Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Dizziness when standing is the second most
common symptom (95.2%), followed by brain fog ( 93.1%), and heart
palpitations (92.0%).
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