Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome

INTRODUCTION

I. Take a moment and imagine if you could please the simple task of standing up. Now picture what it would be like if upon standing you start to sweat. Next your heart starts pounding like it’s going to fly out of your chest. Your field of view starts filling in with little black dots. Your hearing becomes distorted. Your arms and legs suddenly are shaking and you feel like you’re about to faint. This collection of symptoms I have just described to you are all very familiar to someone who has something nicknamed P.O.T.S.

II. When you leave here today you will have a better understanding of what life for someone who has POTS is all about.

III. I will take you from an explanation of what POTS is, who it affects, and what a person suffering from POTS can do to help life a little more enjoyable and less about the symptoms.

BODY

I. What is POTS Syndrome?

What exactly is POTS? Well at the very least it certainly is a mouthful! Some of you may not have even heard of it. Pots is an abbreviation for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. More specifically, the simple act of standing, which so many people take for granted, is enough to send someone with POTS into a state of tachycardia. P.O.T.S. as defined by the website www.cfids.org is “an exaggerated increase in heart rate upon standing. A healthy individual has a slight increase in heart rate- by about 10-15 beats per minute within 10 minutes of standing. POTS is considered present if the heart rate increases by 30 beats per minute, or if it reaches 120 beats per minute or higher over the first 10 minutes of standing , accompanied by other orthostatic symptoms. POTS is an abnormality of the heart rate itself as the heart itself is usually normal.” This may or may not be accompanied by a drop in blood pressure. The S in POTS stands for syndrome. This is the wide variety of symptoms that go along with POTS.

A.

Symptoms involved in POTS

Because POTS targets the autonomic nervous...