What is "POTS"

Many people do not know what POTS is and majority have never heard of it until some of us our diagnosed. I sorta summed it up in the last post, but I pulled out some research that my wonderful doctor I call Superman gave me. They are from scientific journals so it will help explain what it is and how it is diagnosed. Atleast thats what I am hoping to explain to yall :-D


Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is not really a disease it is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. People who are diagnosed with POTS do not have any other "systemic diseases" meaning the entire body is affected. They also do not Orthostatic hypotension, hypothyroidism, or pregnant/lactating to name a few. Yes I have stated that many patients with POTS have low blood pressure, but orthostatic hypotension means the blood pressure drops when a person stands up. Also most people that are diagnosed with POTS are woman at a child baring age. Most of the symptoms the patients has are upon standing, some symptoms can come at any time, however most do not. The main symptoms that come with standing, are rapid heart, palpitations (fluttering feeling in your chest), dizziness, passing out, and an increased heart rate. Most POTS patients have a heart rate of 120 when standing.

POTS patients are commonly misdiagnosed with anxiety disorders. A lot of the symptoms are present with anxiety attacks. Shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, and dizziness. This leads to many misdiagnoses and very frustrated patients.  Most doctors do not know what POTS is and when they see the symptoms they treat for anxiety and do not look at the rest of symptoms.

Most POTS patients are diagnosed with a tilt table test. It is a bed with straps to hold the patient in, the bed starts in laying down position and is stood up right. The patient is connected to heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs, and IV's they watch to see how the patients heart is affected and they try to remake the symptoms that makes the patients pass out. Sometimes they use a cardiac drug to make the heart race. If the test is positive the patient will pass out. They also run blood work to make sure there is no under lying disease as mentioned above.

As for treatment, there is no clear cut plan. Each patient is treated according to symptoms. However, the most common treatment is florinef. It is suppose to raise a patients blood pressure and lower the heart to decrease symptoms of POTS. Beta-blockers is another common treatment which lowers and controls the patients heart rate. There are other medications that can have this same affect as well. In more severe cases a patient can be prescribed saline on and off to keep the blood volume up as well erythropoietin. Doctors will also recommend eating as much salt as possible to keep the blood pressure up. Most doctors recommend over 6 grams of salt a day so most patients take supplements and add salt to every meal.



I pulled this information from 2 articles (i do have more lying around if you have questions) but if you want to read the articles they are:
Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome: The Mayo Clinic Experience By Mart J Thieben et al
The Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS): Pathophysiology, Diagnosis & Management by Satish R Raj

I hope this helps give you a medical explanation of the disease process and if you have any question or want something elaborated on more feel free to email me or even leave a comment.
~Poppet!