Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I can only speak to my own experience and hope that gives you some insight into what POTS is and how it can affect you or the people around you.
What it feels like: Being tired all the time, minimal deep sleep when sleeping or having trouble sleeping and staying asleep.
What causes it:
Pain can be a major factor, there are many nights I cannot go to bed when I want due to a headache or stomach ache or some other ailment. Restless leg syndrome is common with POTS, as is anxiety and depression which can all cause sleep issues.They do not know what causes poor quality sleep when it comes to POTS. For the most part this is what I suffer from, I can sleep 48 hours straight and could still go back to bed the second I get up.
Solutions I’ve found:
Nothing has been found to work as far as I can tell. I do think I sleep better when I’ve done more throughout the day and I got a new mattress, I slept much better after that. To be honest this made sense when I started to read up on it but I had never thought about it before.
Further Reading
“Insomnia & POTS: Can POTS Cause Sleeping Problems? • MyHeart.” MyHeart, https://myheart.net/pots-syndrome/insomnia-sleeping-problems/. Accessed 2 April 2023.
Nicholson, Lorna, and Helen Eftekhari. “Important Lifestyle Changes: Sleep.” PoTS UK, https://www.potsuk.org/managingpots/sleep/. Accessed 2 April 2023.
“Sleep Disturbances and Autonomic Dysfunction in Patients with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.” NCBI, 7 July 2014, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083342/. Accessed 2 April 2023.