Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) is a condition where a person's heart rate increases significantly when they stand up. This can cause symptoms such as dizziness, light-headedness, fainting, and fatigue. People with PoTS may also experience headaches, palpitations, and difficulty concentrating.
POTS often begins after a pregnancy, major surgery, trauma, or a viral illness. It may make individuals unable to exercise because the activity brings on fainting spells or dizziness. The cause of the disorder is unknown.
What is the life expectancy of POTS? People with POTS have a normal life expectancy. The condition doesn't decrease life expectancy.
While POTS can be life-changing, it is not life-threatening. One of the biggest risks for people with POTS is falls due to fainting. Not everyone who has POTS faints. And, for those who do, it may be a rare event.
Because POTS is often associated with gastrointestinal concerns like diarrhea, foods high in FODMAPs — carbohydrates that are difficult to digest — can be irritating. So avoiding foods like wheat, certain dairy products, and onions may be beneficial for some people.
However, for others, a vicious cycle can develop if POTS goes untreated. The cycle begins because people start to spend more time in bed, avoiding activities that provoke symptoms. As people become far less active, muscle mass in the legs is lost, heart capacity shrinks, and the volume of circulating blood is reduced.
Many POTS patients will get better over time. However, some remain sick with POTS indefinitely, and some may progressively get worse.
While some people with POTS will require medications, most will improve with three behavioral changes alone: higher sodium (salt) intake, compression garments, and gradual exercise.
A common test used for diagnosing POTS is the tilt table test. During the test, you lie on a specially designed bed and your heart rate and blood pressure are recorded. Then the bed is tilted to an upright position and your measurements are taken again. A similar test is the active standing test.
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a disorder that can make someone feel faint or dizzy. It happens when the autonomic nervous system doesn't work as it should. The autonomic nervous system is the body's "autopilot" system, controlling things like heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing.
Multiple blood tests are performed when diagnosing POTS. A large number of these are to rule out other causes of symptoms, or to rule out conditions that can be associated with POTS.
Some things can make symptoms worse. These include heat, menstrual cycle, dehydration, alcohol, exercise, and standing for a long time. When you first notice symptoms, lying down may help you feel better.
In the past, it was mistakenly believed to be caused by anxiety. However, modern researchers have determined that POTS is not caused by anxiety. It is caused by a malfunction of the patient's autonomic nervous system.
POTS can be frightening, but it's not life-threatening. While the exact causes are often unclear, POTS symptoms are often due to a sudden surge in heart rate and the body struggling to pump blood back to the heart quickly enough.
With evidence that POTS may be an autoimmune disorder, inflammation might be an underlying issue to consider as a mechanism for the development of POTS.
The prevalence of POTS is around 0.2% in the general population, and an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 individuals in the United States have the disorder.
POTS has been reported to occur frequently in MS and the connection of the two entities is explained by the presence of demyelinating brainstem and hemispheral lesions disrupting the physiological heart rate variability modulation [10,14].
About two-thirds of POTS patients experience headaches as symptoms of POTS syndrome (Mack et al). Migraine headaches, the most intense kind, are common and bring with them additional symptoms such as nausea, a sense that the room is spinning, dizziness, and finding loud noises and bright light extremely bothersome.
In PCS patients suffering from POTS, there may be damage to areas of the brain that would normally inhibit the sympathetic system. This damage may affect the cortex, the pontomedullary brainstem where the parasympathetic centres are located, or sometimes the cerebellum.
Factors which may make PoTS symptoms worse:
Time of day – symptoms tend to be worse in the morning, particularly after getting out of bed after waking up. Rapidly moving from lying or/ sitting to a standing position.
Secondary POTS is associated with a known disease or syndrome; chronic diabetes mellitus is the most common disease related to POTS. Other associated diseases include amyloidosis, sarcoidosis, alcoholism, Lupus, Sjogren's syndrome, heavy metal intoxication, and following chemotherapy (especially from vinca alkaloids).
For those with POTS, it's especially important to know whether or not the beverages you consume are hydrating, or dehydrating, and the effects they could have on your system. Drinks that those with POTS should focus on consuming include: Water. You can never go wrong with plain water.