pots and ncs

[suzy]

Hi, I am new, my son has just been diagnosed with Neurocardiogenic syncope. He has had an ablation for heart arrhythmia, and so I thought his symptoms were similar, racing heart, dizziness, etc. Now that I read about pots, I wonder how it is different from NCS?? Would the fact that he had considerable trouble stablizing body temp. right after birth have any bearing? thanks for any response. Suzy

[ethansmom]

Suzy,

I'm pretty sure that the basic differences between the two conditions are that POTS patients generally present with siginificant tachycardia (rapid HR) upon standing, and NCS patients usually have fainting or near-fainting episodes with little change in the heart rate. However, a person can have one or both of these conditions simultaneously. Plenty of people POTS have drops in blood pressure and episodes of fainting. There are a lot of similarities in many of the symptoms, however. Here are some links from the Dysautonomia Information Network that explain each condition in detail:

http://www.dinet.org/pots_an_overview.htm

http://www.dinet.org/NCS/ncs.htm

I'm not sure if your son's inability to regulate his own temp at birth had any bearing on his condition- that is something I would definitely bring up with the doctor if it concerns you. As far as I know that is a fairly common problem among newborns (my son had trouble keeping warm as well, which kept us in the hospital a little longer than the norm, but ended up being perfectly healthy). Just throwing in my two cents = )