How Did This Happen?

[Guest veryblue]

Hey everyone,

Still feeling like crap over here. It apperas that I am getting blood pooling in my feet now. Thye get kinda redish-purple if I stand or sit. I never had this before or maybe it just wasent noticible. Maybe I should try ritalin. Anyway I am trying to figure out how I got this way. So far I have 3 possible theories...

1. a parasite I got from eating out...I ate out had mild bowl movements and then couldn't gain any weight after that even though I was pigging out...I didnt loose any but didnt gain any either.

2. I think I had and still have a sinus infection for about 9 months now. I have a swollen lymph node on my neck and I can't ever breathe...my nose is always stuffy and I have a lot of drainage. It's gross.

3. An unknown virus... a week before my heart started pounding I was on a plane ( a breeding ground for germs) then 3 days later I got a bad headache and the headache stayed with me unitl I had my tachy attack...maybe it was a mild virus?

So do any of these sound like ways of contracting POTS? I was under the impression that you got POTS from horrible infections like mono...so is it still possible that something like a sinus infection could be causing my POTS?

Also I feel pretty bad when I spend a lot of time in my apartment...maybe something in here is bothering me? Humm I dunno...but I seem to be getting worse and not better...POTS isnt supposed to progress...a week ago I swear I was runing 4 miles a day and now I'm on my butt trying to keep my BP somewhat raised. I know everybody gets POTS for a reason and I am just trying to figure mine out. The only good news is that if it was a virus then I have a great chance of having it go away completly right??

[Deb]

Some of what you think are causes actually sound like symptoms of POTS, although the sinus infection might be allergies. I had swollen lymph glands and I had loose bowels, but lost weight because I couldn't eat, and I started getting migrain-like headachs as my tachycardia got worse. Most of those things went away after the florinef started working, but I still have a lot of GI problems.

Yes, POTS can be caused by a virus. There is some school of thought that if that is the cause of it, then it sometimes goes away as spontanously as it came.

POTS also can show up quickly or it can take months before it can be diagnosed. So it's very likely that you could have had a virus and then you contracted POTS all within a couple of months. In my case it was months before I had full blown POTS because I didn't have the tacycardia until later.

I'm so sorry that you feel so bad today. Are you on any medications?

[MomtoGiuliana]

POTS isn't "progressive", but that doesn't mean it can't get worse before it gets better, or that it doesn't come and go. My POTS came on pretty suddenly (during pregnancy in my case) and got worse within weeks.

GI problems are common with POTS--so it is possible as the above post states, that you are describing POTS symptoms rather than causes. However, you should probably rule out other causes of GI disturbance. If you ate out in the U.S., a parasite is unlikely, but I suspect there are tests to determine whether you have such an infection.

Your sinus problems, of course, are not a symptom of POTS, but they are likely making the POTS symptoms worse. Whenever I get a bad cold, my POTS symptoms re-surface. Not enough to disable me, but enough to make the cold that much more miserable. So, you should probably attempt to determine the cause of the sinus problem and get treatment for that, as that will likely help reduce your POTS symptoms.

I think one can only guess, at this point in time, why any of us develop POTS. Not enough is known. Of course, there is an understanding that POTS often is "triggered" by events such as viruses, pregnancy, post partum, injury. But, not enough is known to say definitively what triggers a particular person's POTS, and perhaps more importantly, why.

Regardless of what may have triggered your POTS, you have an excellent chance of your symptoms resolving to a mild level. That is the experience of most people with POTS.

Hope you feel better very soon!