Scary Statistics

My interest in blogging so much happened a year or two after I got sick with POTS. I’ve always loved to write and have had several different blogs or online journals throughout the years, but this is the first one that is really here to stay.

Despite today being Halloween, it is also the last day of Dysautonomia Awareness month, which is something I haven’t been able to touch on a ton since I was gone for much of October. Instead of writing about my own viewpoint, I am going to post some fun facts from the Dysautonomia International Facebook page — along with a few little comments about some of them. Also, Dysautonomia is an umbrella term for autonomic nervous system disorders, and POTS is my specific disorder.

Brain fog is perhaps one of the most frustrating symptoms of Dysautonomia because not only do you feel like you’ve lost a working body, but your brain gets riled up and confused. I am able to manage this one pretty well these days, but can always think better when I am laying down on the couch and have a normal amount of blood pumping to my brain.

It took me about a week and a half to get a proper POTS diagnosis, mainly because it just took time to get into the doctor who is now my cardiologist. The first doctor who saw me speculated I that had POTS since he could see the drastic changes in heart rate and blood pressure when I changed positions, but we did more extensive testing when I went to a second doctor who is an expert in Dysautonomia. Which leads me to this little fact:

No wonder every single person I meet in this area goes to the same doctors office and knows about the little red leather chairs. It’s crazy to me that something as widespread as POTS still has so few people who are considered experts in it. I think this will be changing drastically in the next few years.

My biggest issue these days is pain. It fluctuates greatly from day to day or month to month, but the coat hanger pain and arm pain is the worst. It is difficult to sit at a computer and just type as long as I want to because my arms, shoulders, and pecs have lots of trigger points. I am still going to physical therapy, and hope to work my way up to using a computer for a normal amount of time.

This makes me FUME. Anyone who tells a person that their chronic illness is in their head clearly has no empathy and has likely been blessed with good health for their entire life. Like, come to any doctor with me and they’ll tell you something is off with my autonomic nervous system. Come to my cardiologist and he’ll tell you every single thing that is going on, and why my body behaves the way it does. I may not always understand why I am having certain symptoms, but there is a logical explanation behind each and every one of them. 

POTS is not a rare illness, it’s just rarely diagnosed or talked about. I happen to have a more severe case of POTS, however I guarantee if you are friends with a couple hundred people on Facebook that at least a few of them have been effected by it in one way or another. Since the number guesstimating how many people have it is so high (about 1 in 100 people), I speculate many of these POTSies have infrequent fainting spells, some unexplained vertigo, or a little handful of symptoms they are able to tolerate enough that they don’t go searching for answers. As the graphic mentioned earlier, it is only about 25% of people with POTS who are disabled from it.

Whether or not this is something close to your heart (no pun intended!), please take a minute to check out the foundation and educate yourself a little more about Dysautonomia. It will definitely be something you will notice at some point in the future, whether it’s with a friend or an acquaintance. POTS is a very easy thing to test for, as long as a doctor knows what to look for — which can be the hardest part of any chronic illness. Hopefully we will have a cure soon!