Does Treatment Actually Make You Worse Longterm?

[ramakentesh]

Just curious - if someone with POTS has been taking a medication such as a vasoconstrictor like DHE or Midodrine and after a significant amount of time is still subject to intolerable sideeffects and then they ween off, how often do they find that their POTS has actually got WORSE because their body has been relying on the treatment?

Thanks.

[Ernie]

Hi,

I can't answer your specific answer but I know that when I have to stop my meds to do a test I get back to square one. This is very discouraging because I also hope that I would be better and that one day I could stop my medication.

I am taking many meds and I am afraid that in the long run I will have problems with the side effects. So far so good. I hope it continues that way.

[Guest tearose]

I think this is what happens when we become "tolerant" of a drug.

When you remove the drug, our body has to relearn how to function. Our body has to learn how start producing the chemicals it got use to not making. Am I making this understandable?

This happened to me after years of using caffeine to raise my bp. Caffeine stopped working so I took more and then it stopped working again. I removed all caffeine and I was worse. I finally have figured what to do since I do need some caffeine. I start on a slow daily dose of 50 mg of caffeine for one week, go up to 100 the second week, up to 150 the third week and then come off for a week. This seems to be the best way for me avoid the tolerance that can develop.

best regards,

tearose

[ramakentesh]

Interesting. My concern is that lsat time I managed to go from a month of pretty ordinary symptoms to an ok point where it was about 40-50% Im concerned that by taking meds to get over this slump ill actually be delaying getting back to the point??