Posture/Alignment

[yogini]

I noticed another post where people were talking about having one leg longer than the other. I don't have that issue, but my stomach sticks out which I think causes pooling (not the other way around in my case). This is the way my body is built - other family members have it but not the POTS. Also, I tend to hunch over - this supposedly closes off your lungs and makes it harder to breathe. I used to have horrible posture until I started doing yoga a couple of years ago. Now I have a better idea of how to sit and stand, and correct myself whenever I remember. I've been standing up straighter and I feel better (which is not totally due to posture, but might be part). Not cured by any means, but much better. Wondering if anyone else has similar issues... and if this contributes to POTS?

By the way, one of my legs is a little turned in (noticeable only to me), but I am not sure this is related to my POTS.

[Chaos]

I don't know how much posture has to do with POTS but if you look at the vagal nerve's pathway, there are a lot of places where it can get "snagged" or pressed on by tissues that are not moving as they should. Any time you have poor posture, the body tissues aren't able to move as they should so maybe indirectly the poor posture could aggravate POTS. I think that's why Dr. Rowe is advocating manual therapies to work on releasing those various areas. (I think I've read that it's Dr. Rowe from Johns Hopkins who is promoting and researching this..??...)

I know when I look at Iyengar's yoga books, I'm always amazed by how much the poses are listed as impacting various aspects of the autonomic nervous system as well as the hormonal and organ systems. It seems to make sense in a way since so many people with dysauto are hypermobile and hypermobile people are frequently attracted to yoga. They would likely feel better with doing an appropriate yoga practice since the poses apparently impact the very areas with which the hypermobile/dysauto person has to struggle. And since yoga definitely works on helping you find better alignment and posture... it seems like it all ties together somehow. Or maybe it's just my foggy brain that's all tied together.

[lieze]

I also hunch.

I don't know that my belly sticks out I am too thin and always have been. I have a long torso but my legs are most likely short in comparison probably not to the naked eye but if anyone were to measure me I might have a normal sized torso and just shorter legs. I am 5'3 almost 4".

I never gained weight like I should and really didn't develop normal breasts either. My gyno said I have the normal breast tissue that all women have and he didn't say this but I just did not develop the normal fat that women carry around their breasts.

So I always felt strange that way like I was still waiting to hit puberty. I think I started my period a bit late was always way too thin was almost too hairy fine hair for a while even on my stomach. I think some of that fell out though with the pregnancy hormones and never grew back. At puberty I sweated horribly like I would have it clear down to my elbows and had a lot of anxiety.

My mom took me to the doctor over and over because I ate normally but did not gain and was super thin I'd say maybe 70 pounds all the way through junior high and 90's in senior high. They were always worried if I got sick with anything I wouldn't be able to fight it off.

I had difficulty always in gym with being able to perform and do like the other kids. I seemed weak in comparison. I would feel frozen it was humiliating. When running I could run but I would always be last. As I got older I had a period there where I did bicycle and handle it okay for short distances and did some light aerobics. Light was all I could handle. And I did have an incident there once where my heart started racing out of control (could have been an SVT) I was born with AVNRT.

But really was never real active in sports.

So I'm not sure my body was ever normal.

Also I noticed a feeling like low blood sugar or blood sugar dropping just out of the blue in my 20's but it also seemed to resolve on it's own. It really could have been mini POTS episodes that were so minor that they didn't scare me at all.

[sue1234]

Oh yea, I do believe posture could be a contributing factor. I started a thread on this very subject probably a year or more ago, and would link to it, but now that we are in the new forum, all the old posts aren't retrievable.

I know I have gotten bad posture in the last 10 years. It would very well make sense that vessels are getting impinged upon and affecting circulation.