Questions To Ask Doctor

[Olive]

I wanted to ask ya'll what are some good questions for a newbie to ask the autonomic cardiologist on my first appointment. I have been taking notes about different medications and looked them up. Right now I'm just on a low dose beta blocker and klonipin for anxiety. I am very pro active in my care and believe in questioning doctors. I want to know the why and why nots of everything and how it works. I will probably be her worst nightmare. I want it explained down to the cellular level. I don't want them to say you have POTS and that be it. I want to know why and what can be done to cure what I have.

My symptoms are tachycardia, extreme exhaustion, head aches, joint pain, orthostatic hypotension and sob.

Thank you for any advice you can give.

[Chaos]

Welcome and good luck with your appointment tomorrow.

Have you had an opportunity to read the DINET main web page? It is a veritable gold mine of information on POTS, NCS and other forms of autonomic dysfunction. It also has many links and reference articles related to many of the topics associated with POTS, including many of the possible causes of POTS- such as MCAD, EDS, etc.

For most of us there does not seem to be a "cure". We mitigate as many symptoms as we can with lifestyle changes and meds when we can tolerate them. For others, it seems to burn itself out over 2-5 years (more likely when it's been triggered by a virus.)

Unfortunately the autonomic nervous system has only been really being studied for 15-20 years at best, and since it's so very complicated, it's been a slow process for research. I doubt that any of us have gotten all the answers we want because so often there really ISN'T an answer that the docs can give you.

I've seen specialists at several of the big autonomic centers and still have more questions than they have answers. Hopefully if you can read a lot of the info on the web page it can explain a lot of the biology and science for you and then you can focus more on the specifics of any treatment options that might help with your symptoms.

In my experience, the more you know going in, the better you can help the doctor look for possible causes etc. I know the more I read on the website, the more it triggered "AHA!" moments and gave me more things to ask my doctor about and look into on my own.

Hope your appt goes well.