New Study On Psych Profile In Pots

[summer]

I know that the topic of anxiety and POTS has come up several times lately. Apparently there is a recent study from Vanderbilt published in the March 2009 issue of the "Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry" that has looked at this issue. Here is a link to the abstract:

http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/80/3/339

Also, here is an interesting response to the study by Dr. Svetlana Blitshteyn. I think she does a great job of explaining anxiety as a symptom of POTS:

http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/80/3/339

Just thought some of you might be interested.

Summer

[janiedelite]

Thanks, Summer! I couldn't get to the original article because I'm not a member of Medscape. But the second link you posted with the response to the article was very informative and pretty much told me what the article was about. Just more affirmation to us POTS patients that the problem is NOT in our head!!!

[summer]

I couldn't get to the original article because I'm not a member of Medscape.

Hi Thankful!

Opps. I plead "brainfog"! Sorry, I should have thought of that. I've changed the link to the abstract. But you're right, you pretty much get the idea from the response by Dr. Blitshteyn. Thanks for letting me know.

Summer

[ajw4790]

Thanks for the post.

[MelissaCrystal]

Finally something to show the doctor that tells me, "I think it's all just caused by anxiety, here are some meds for that."

[Poohbear]

I know this is a repeat topic but here is another link.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1711050...Pubmed_RVDocSum

[jump]

Thanks, these are such helpful articles!!!!

As someone who had lifelong situational anxiety (usually social or performance-related) and then developed POTS, I can easily tell the difference between psychiatric anxiety and POTS-anxiety. POTS-anxiety is so much more physical -- it's like all the symptoms start happening for no reason. When I used to have social anxiety (and still do, on rare occasions), it was like the mental side of things ("oh no, they're all looking at me, everyone thinks I'm so stupid," etc) was more prominent, and the physical side-effects (racing heart, chest pain) felt like just that - side effects. Side effects of my cognitive process. Whereas POTS "anxiety" feels like a rush of physical symptoms that have cognitive side-effects -- I'll get the racing heart, start sweating, feel faint, can't breathe all out of no where, and I'll start thinking, "Ohmygod, I hope I don't have a panic attack in public, I hope there's nothing really wrong with me," etc.

But, I think since doctors are so concerned with the physical, they can't see the difference -- they look at the physical attributes and just call it all "anxiety."

[ramakentesh]

Great links and ofcourse these comments just reiterate what we already know.

Professor Esler at the Baker Institute has done work on panic disorder before his involvement with POTS and I believe there are measurable differences between a bad POTS adrenal surge and a bad panic attack (I think they found that serotonin was increased in the brain of panic patients, but their blood levels of NE and E were normal, whereas in POTS the NE and E can be off or too high).

Its sad that some docs think its easier to point the finger at a patient's mental state, than to actually pursue the problem and do some research. All my docs luckily were great and my specialist told me that anxiety can be a symptom.

Originally I didnt have any anxiety, but with my last and worst crash I felt anxious most days before id faint or nearly faint. As said above, the anxiety associated with POTS is more of a flood of bolidy functions like extreme tremors, etc. I think Jump hits the nail on the head.