{"id":7,"date":"2023-03-26T01:39:46","date_gmt":"2023-03-26T01:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.guidetopots.com\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2024-11-04T00:55:55","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T00:55:55","slug":"what-is-pots","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.guidetopots.com\/?page_id=7","title":{"rendered":"What is POTS?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is POTS?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

POTS or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome has been in the news a lot lately, with many people who had Covid and then developed long Covid being diagnosed with POTS. With more and more cases appearing and being diagnosed, the media has been focusing more on it and, in turn, bringing more awareness to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

POTS falls under the umbrella of dysautonomia diseases, which also include Orthostatic Intolerance, Multiple System Atrophy, and many more. I can only speak to POTS, but I\u2019m sure the rest are easily searchable on Google. POTS can be genetic or brought on by the virus or other illnesses; a lot of recent cases have been associated with Covid. For me, it was pneumonia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please note that while I referred to it as a disease it is really a syndrome of autonomic dysfunction resulting in a series of symptoms.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So actually what is it?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The way it was explained to me is that the valves in your legs are broken and they don\u2019t realize when they need to close. Which means they stay open when you are lying down, sitting, or standing. So when you stand up normally (without POTS), the valves in your legs close, forcing the blood to go up to the rest of your body. With POTS, the blood stays at your feet, causing, in some cases, pooling of the blood. Because the blood stays at your feet when you stand, your blood pressure drops, and because your blood pressure drops, your heart beats faster to try to make up for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sudden drop in blood pressure and sudden elevated heart rate when changing positions is the hallmark of POTS. Normally, the heart rate jumps by 40 beats per minute when going from sitting to standing and can be much more when going from lying down to standing. At this point in time, POTS does not seem to have an impact on a person\u2019s life expectancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Symptoms of POTS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

POTS is different in everyone and often different in the same person day-to-day. Some of these symptoms someone might have one day and might not have the next. Some can be long-term, and others are short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n