Do Any Of You Feel Fullness In Your Carotids From Your Pots ?

[Guest GaryRN]

I have this much of the time and it feel like the carotids are going to explode. It a feeling of both pressure and fullness in the carotids.

Can anyone relate to this ?

Gary

[valliali]

i get an unbelievable pressure in my carotids, as well as my whole head. it corresponds to my heart rate. i feel and hear a pounding and whooshing that corresponds to my heart rate. and i feel as if all the blood vessels in my neck and head will explode. it is truly horrific, i totally understand. fortunately, i learned that mine is WAY WAY WAY worse in low pressure/high humidity environments. so i moved to california and am not nearly as affected by it. but i still get that feeling a few times a week, for an hour or two, and it is really unsettling.

[ramakentesh]

yeah i get this as well. My doc said it was from norepinephrine choking the carotid arteries. In my tilt they found reduced carotid artery flow down to about 40% normal.

[mjan]

YESSS!!! But I thought it was from acid relux.. Had an ultra sound of Carotids and they were fine.

No wonder.. I'll run this past my doc.

Jan

[morgan617]

Constantly and my jugulars will get very distended in an upright position also ( it's bad enough people have commented on it) ...horrible sensations. morgan

[abbriggs]

Mine feels like someone is choking me. It makes my ears clog up and my head gets horrible pressure. It is one of the symptoms that bothers me the most!!!

[valliali]

abbriggs, i get that exact same sensation. my ears get full, neck full, and a horrible pressure in my head. and i can hear and feel whooshing in my ears. it's probably my worst symptom.

have you had any tests to see what is causing this? i have only had a brain MRI. non contrast. my doctors never seem to take this symptom seriously. but i cannot stress enough how intense it is. a feeling that intense is definitely not normal. have you had any suggestions as to what it may be?

[Kathy_Ireland]

I don't get a feeling of pressure but I do hear a constant whooshing in my ears. It's there all the time and gets much worse as my POTS goes through bad times. Often it's so loud that I cannot hear small sounds around me over it, like footsteps approaching or rain/wind outside. It's incredibly annoying.When it gets really bad my left ear makes a squeeking noise on every heart beat too. Not fun when it's 150 times a minute!

The only thing that ever offers relief is to sit quietly with my hands applying light pressure on my neck. That shushes it for a few seconds.Sometimes I have to do that to hear something soft in another room or outside.

I thought I was the only one with these symptoms. Really I love potsplace more every day!

[fire_lupine06]

Yes...omg yes, I have the whooshing, the tight feeling in my neck , and anytime i sing ( yeah i know , not the brightest of ideas for a potsie but ) my carotids get very distended , so much that my mom has commented that she didnt want them to pop o.o.

yes I got the choked feeling too.

[jenwic]

Yes! I'm glad I'm not the only one. It is sometimes worst at night when I first lay down. I wonder what can help?

[abbriggs]

No, I have not had any testing done. Mine started with my pregnancy with my daughter. Every time I would have a contraction my neck would feel like someone was choking me. Dr. Levine in dallas told me that it was my muscles contracting in my neck. Mine is really bad with I first start falling asleep at night or after a big meal. I would love to know what it is. I will have it for 6 months and then I will go away as quickly as it came on.

[abbriggs]

No, I have not had any testing done. Mine started with my pregnancy with my daughter. Every time I would have a contraction my neck would feel like someone was choking me. Dr. Levine in dallas told me that it was my muscles contracting in my neck. Mine is really bad with I first start falling asleep at night or after a big meal. I would love to know what it is. I will have it for 6 months and then I will go away as quickly as it came on.

[tinkerbella]

i get chocking with chest pain, heart beat and pressure in ears. now hissing drives me crazy!!!!! pressure is much better when they adjust my thyroid.

i play background noise all the time to try to mask it

we are not alone, can you hear me now? LOL?

[valliali]

kathy ireland- have you had intracranial hypertension ruled out?

i'm wondering how many of you guys have pressure in your head as a symptom that goes along with the whooshing and neck tightness? like unbelieveable pressure? mine feels like there is too much blood in my head. wayyyyyyyyyyy too much blood. or like it's become tar. and my blood pressure has always been normal during these times. sometimes this kind of pressure lasts hours, even days, and i cannot function. it is MUCH MUCH MUCH worse in humid weather right before it's about to rain. but i have NO answers which bothers me a lot because it is soooooooooo intense.

does anyone have any ideas about what is causing our pressure complaints?

[morgan617]

This is a symtpom I have when the BP is skyrocketing. I can hear my pulse in my ears, or just one ear. it drives me nuts.

Now, for some reason, totally unknown to me, my BP seems to have dumped, but my body still acts like it's shoving upward, even at lower pressures, I still get the rushes or "surges" as I like to call them. And my beautiful scarlet throat. morgan

[ramakentesh]

yeah i can relate to the pressure feeling and most of what people have said bar the weather connection (MAYBE THERE IS ONE BUT IVE NEVER TAKEN ENOUGH NOTICE )

i get migraines as well which can make me feel similar but only on one side.

[Kathy_Ireland]

kathy ireland- have you had intracranial hypertension ruled out?

I don't think I have had intracranial hypertension ruled out. I've never heard of it before now but have just looked it up. According to stats 98% of people have an extremely bad and constant headache with it.I don't have that thank God. 58% of people have whooshing in the ears thats only resolved my placing hands over the jugular vein and that's definitely me. Does anyone else find this relieves it?

I have generally very low blood pressure so that I should have this constant whooshing often surprises me. I find it's one of the many symptoms doctors tend to pay absolutely no attention to when I bring it to their attention. I've tried using ear plugs at night for it when it's bad and keeping me awake and I think they can help a little bit.

[elenorjean]

I found this thread by searching in google... Did anyone find out what causes this feeling?

I have had POTS for a long time. After I got COVID in 2022, and as I've entered perimenopause, the symptoms have worsened. One of the weirdest but most disconcerting things lately is this feeling of being strangled or neck constricted, and a sort of surge of pressure in the head, neck, ears and sinuses and I can hear my heartbeat for a few seconds. Sometimes my hearing seems to almost pulse on and off with my heartbeat. After the surge dissipates the constriction feeling stays. During all of this, my heart rate doesn't seem to go all that high. It's been much higher during classic POTS flare-ups. By around 5pm or so, the feeling is gone, but of course, that could be because I finish work at 5 and then do other activites and can lie down etc.

I also get the same sensations and symptoms when I get up suddenly, but in those instances they are also accompanied by tachycardia, a more "classic" POTS.

The very odd thing is it happens every day b/w 2pm and 3pm while I'm sat doing work. Doesn't seem to happen other times. I just tried something out now, I lay down with my feet up. When I did that, I had that feeling (i am sure you all know this feeling) of the blood sort of rushing back to equalise in this relieving wave, then the symptoms all went away which makes me think this is definitely a POTS thing after all. That would explain why it happens most days at work as well, because my work involves sitting still in front of a computer all day, and sitting still in the past has often caused POTS episodes. Perhaps around 2pm and 3pm is the point at which my body just can't take anymore?

Would love to hear anyone else's experiences etc. Thanks.

[Pistol]

@elenorjean Welcome to the forum! The symptoms you describe sound similar to what I experience when my BP goes up. Have you measured your BP when this happens? The fact that you become symptomatic around the same time - is it around 1-2 hours after your lunch? It COULD be related to that, since eating activates the Parasympathetic branch, which could cause an abnormal response in POTS. Also - do you take any medications? Short-acting medications can cause problems between doses. 

[Sarah Tee]

@elenorjean, I don’t have POTS, but my symptoms get worse between 2pm and 6pm every day. I just try all my tricks then, and make sure to keep very very quiet – no-one is allowed to talk to me about anything even vaguely stressful. Occasionally I resort to having a four-hour nap, although this isn’t very practical.

There has been research showing circadian rhythms in the immune system:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nri3386

(It’s rather technical, I’m afraid.)

Some other research showed that an inflammatory marker in rheumatoid arthritis followed a particular pattern each day, and that this matched up with patient reports of a daily symptom cycle. So it’s likely that other autoimmune and autoinflammatory conditions also have a daily pattern.

[elenorjean]

13 hours ago, Pistol said:

@elenorjean Welcome to the forum! The symptoms you describe sound similar to what I experience when my BP goes up. Have you measured your BP when this happens? The fact that you become symptomatic around the same time - is it around 1-2 hours after your lunch? It COULD be related to that, since eating activates the Parasympathetic branch, which could cause an abnormal response in POTS. Also - do you take any medications? Short-acting medications can cause problems between doses. 

Hello, thanks for the reply.

 

I do take Ritalin, but I have tested this with different times for taking Ritalin and I haven't noticed an effect.

 

With food, I tend to eat around 11am and then nothing until dinner. Maybe it's to do with low blood sugar then?

[elenorjean]

2 hours ago, Sarah Tee said:

@elenorjean, I don’t have POTS, but my symptoms get worse between 2pm and 6pm every day. I just try all my tricks then, and make sure to keep very very quiet – no-one is allowed to talk to me about anything even vaguely stressful. Occasionally I resort to having a four-hour nap, although this isn’t very practical.

There has been research showing circadian rhythms in the immune system:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nri3386

It’s all rather technical, I’m afraid. Some other research showed that an inflammatory marker in rheumatoid arthritis followed a particular pattern each day, and that this matched up with patient reports of a daily symptom cycle.

That's really interesting... I will ask my Hypermobility specialist about it. Thing is, I am just certain he'll say "oh yes that's all your (low) blood pressure" like he does about everything haha.

[MaineDoug]

I have a sensation of tingling or itching in both carotids.