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statesof

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  1. Hey everyone I wanted to see if anyone else gets these same types of experiences. Every once in a while it’s like something will happen to my brain that feels like it’s been whiplashed or something and then it will take days to recover. Fox example, I was crouching down looking into a cabinet and it’s like something happened to the left side of my brain suddenly; my vision felt off the rest of the day, mentally felt out of it/ detached, I’ll feel a numbness under the skin in that area and what feel like along arteries, sleeping laying on that side of my head will feel uneasy, I feel more anxious and out of it, and it slowly seems to ‘heal’ over the course of days. This type of thing can happen randomly but typically occurs if I do a certain type of position change — like if I were to stand up from sitting and then immediately bend down that completely messes with my brain and causes this. So I’ve been able to stop much of this but every once in a while it just seems to happen. It’s like that area of my brain has been whiplashed and has to recover from the even. I never know what’s actually happening though; momentary hypoxia? Some sort of stroke like event? A higher level of hypotension or my blood vessels spamming? anyone else experience similar? Thanks.
  2. Hello everyone, I wanted to see if anyone has used any of the barometric pressure apps for smartphones to good use in noticing any occurrences with relation to their symptoms day to day (POTS or migraine)? Also, does anyone know if there are any that are more accurate or possibly medically approved? Thanks.
  3. Hi @SGar just seeing your post. Yes I still have depersonalization/ derealization, for me it's mostly the derealization symptom though. I also have Depersonalization Disorder so I've noticed the DP/DR from that as well as a strong derealization which seems to be when my brain clearly doesn't have enough blood flow going to it -- but in those cases it is an acute symptom, rather than my Depersonalization Disorder which is just all the time. For me I found that amitriptyline was the only thing that helped both my brainfog and my derealization, its still there but just way turned down where before the brain fog was really bad and I would feel disconnected from myself as well as places would always look like the dimensions were a bit off, and just kind of fake and daydream/ picture like. Those three symptoms together are absolutely terrible to have to live life with an I would say they were 9/10 bad for me (along with a bunch of other light processing based visual symptoms). Now I'd say its closer to 2 to 3/10 and much more livable. Also in the beginnig for me the derealization was there and then over a course of three months it went from coming in waves to being constant, and then there was like a snowballing affect and the depersonalization and brainfog got really bad and I just had a laundry list of symptoms at that point, that was all at the very beginning of my neurological/ autonomic issues.
  4. Hey @Pistol when you say you 'crashed' can you go into more detail about that? -- like what specific symptoms you were experiencing and how long it took for you to feel more okay again? Also, do you have any idea why the decrease in altitude affected you in that way? I know for me when I drove to DC and first experienced this stuff I went from around 2,200 ft elevation to about sea level and that's the first thing that made me think elevation affected me negatively particularly if it was a fast descent.
  5. Hey @Pistol I was driving myself which is typically not a problem for me as far is over-stimulation, its more the feeling like something physical is happening to my brain either with some external change over that period in time of the landscape (like elevation, or barometric pressure, or something else), or something physical occurs at a certain point in driving, like after +8 hours or something. The odd thing is its a very 'physical' feeling, not at all like brain fog or over-stimulation which I've had in the past. It also doesn't make sense to me that it would just be about being behind the wheel as I've worked for longer periods of time than that with more meticulous of tasks and never felt anything similar. I cannot say for certain its linked to elevation changes but it feels to me it must be some environmental occurrence like that, that would be causing this.
  6. Hey everyone, I'm wanting to see if anyone else has had similar experiences. Over the last year I've gone on four different road trips; three of which were two day drives to get to the destination, the other was a one day 12 hour drive. What I noticed was that except for one of the trips, my brain felt pretty horrible after the first day long of driving. I would explain it as an 'uncomfortable' feeling in my head, some pressure, sometimes it felt like my brain was physically overtaxed (not mentally overstimulated), and just very physically sensitive and 'off' feeling. When I did take an aspirin it made my brain feel better but made my chest feel an uncomfortable tightness/ pressure in it. The negative feelings in my head from this would kind of come up in waves a bit and then go down for a few hours, and its been a couple days since I stopped driving and I can still feel my brain 'recovering' from it but not 100% better. I don't know if it is the elevation changes through the drive, or barometric pressure or something like that. In that particular drive going from Chicago to Texas, I notice I feel terrible once I get around Oklahoma; not sure why though as its not much of an elevation difference. I have realized that my POTS brain and body is not built for travel, it almost feels like it could be dangerous for me or at least that's the feeling I get from what my body is telling me, still wish I could nail it down to what factor may be the cause of this all. I
  7. I have POTS and have been prescribed xanax extended release. For me it only can help with chest pressure, when aspirin and my cc blocker doesn't fully work. I take it very sparingly because its a benzo, and I haven't felt it make much of a difference with my POTS symptoms in general.
  8. Hi guys, I haven't seen many posts about this but was a topic that I wanted to bring up to see how other people are approaching it. I have POTS as well as an unknown possible complication from POTS which hasn't been able to be fully diagnosed or had any light shed on it by doctors, it is typically the 'well its not migraine' or 'well its not POTS' or 'it could be a combination of many things, but we can't at this point know with medicine being where it is'. I wanted to see how do you guys view your long term personal finances when it comes to things like retirement and things like that? I know for myself I try to keep savings specifically for medical expenses that would be larger than a healthy person my age, or savings for if health wise anything came up that would keep me from being able to do my current job, but I don't know how to view retirement. I hope that I would be able to make it to retirement age with hopefully the same quality of health that I have current, but there are some days where symptoms are so bad or even weird and unusual at times that I really can't see myself living to 65 without some serious health complication related to my current conditions. I know we all have different levels of disability from POTS/ autonomic conditions and co-morbid conditions but just wanted to see how you guys view these things in your life.
  9. Hi @Scout, as others have said I think it is difficult to, in a short office appointment with a doctor who may or may not be the best communicator, to help them to understand your condition, current issues and what has worked/ hasn't worked and get to a place where something beneficial comes out of the appointment. I've typically had the doctor either not really hear me when I speak to them or have no idea about POTS but are sure that all my symptoms must be that and so I should go back to a POTS specialist (who are also without full answers). What I have found that helps is create yourself a plan prior to the appointment prioritizing the most pressing issues, something like this: 1. Here is my diagnosis 2: Here are the symptoms I need helped for a better quality of life 3. These are the things that have/ have not worked 4. How can we best treat those today? 5. Is there other testing that will better allow us to treat those? And practice your delivery of what your going to say with time and understanding being the biggest hurdles for the appointment. I know for me trying to give a 10 year medical history with many ups and downs and question marks throughout it is impossible to adequately give to a doctor only has 10-15 minutes to get caught up. And then also being realistic; there is no general 'cure' for POTS and research and understanding on this illness is still in its infancy, but different symptoms can be managed sometimes well sometimes not depending on the person and their particular reaction to a medication -- what works for one of us may do nothing for another. All these are just based on my own experience and struggles communicating with doctors, some good some bad, so don't see this as in any way professional advice.
  10. I'm on 15mg and have been on that from the beginning since my body is really sensitive to meds since having POTS. I found that within the first day I could tell it was having an effect on me, kind of had a 'drug high' type feeling for the first week, but I also noticed I could walk around a bit further and my body would recover faster from it. 30mg is the most I've done and I can definitely tell when I'm on that dose, can walk further/ recover faster but it causes too much of a feeling of head pressure for me. The one downside I've felt with the drug is that my body gets used to it really quickly (the medication does have a short halflife), so I don't feel the same positive effects I felt the first few weeks I was on it. It just makes things maybe 5-10% better for me overall.
  11. I'm currently going through the process of relocating mostly because I'm trying to get out of an area with snow -- with a wheelchair it just adds extra limits for almost half the year. But the few factors I was trying to think about other than cost were weather patter changes (potential increase my migraines), heat (not sure how 90+ summers would affect my POTS body), and elevation changes which my body really does not like.
  12. Here's how I approached jobs/ work. My biggest problems were 1. That I couldn't do any real physical tasks (walking, lifting, etc.) and 2. I was not sure how I would feel from day to day, and was not fully accepting my limitations. First I started doing freelance graphic design on some of the freelance websites and sound design work for about two years neither of which afforded me a livable income. Then I was able to get a computer based kind of coding type of job where I could work remotely but I still had to go into the office for training and the mestinon that I was on which would allow me to do a little more as far as walking goes was already by the end of the week becoming almost ineffective. So I ended up getting a powered wheelchair which basically allows me to go into the office when I need to and just allows me to do much more in life overall -- I would have no life without it. With my condition sitting upright for long periods of time doesn't bother me at all, and I saw my only option for work as being somehow computer based. Also I had to learn how to be better with money, which kind of doing the Dave Ramsey stuff helped me with. This I just add in because just like with my health and work, I feel like I needed to approach finances from a more tactical perspective. I'm going to have higher medical costs than the 'normal' person throughout my whole life; medications, wheelchair batteries, more doctors appointments. For all of these areas it was just a process of doing what I could, with what I had at my disposal, where I was at.
  13. Hi scout I as well have a wheelchair; I use a powered wheelchair because my symptoms are related to physical exertion in general so a regular wheelchair would be as bad as walking for me. Mines the Lite Rider Envy by Golden Technologies, it doesn't really look cool but it was the slimmest one I could find and had a long range cause it uses 2 batteries. With new good batteries its good for like 2-3 hours of driving straight, so if your going to a place and then sitting for a while it can last all day. For my case of POTS I wish I had gotten it sooner just cause I can actually do stuff now that is completely impossible otherwise. It can break into 4 pieces to be put into a car but some of the parts are heavier so you might need a non-POTS person to do it, for me I have like an automatic hitch lift thing.
  14. My experience may be different from others, but I found that I would have to do at least a moderate amount of cardio time (15-30 minutes) for exercise to not make me feel awful afterwards. When I would try the stationary bike for 5 minutes lets say, it was extremely hard on my brain and body, when I just decided to do 15 just to see how I would feel, it seemed to be sustainable and I actually felt much better afterwards. Everyone's body is probably different.
  15. I'm on calcium channel blockers as well; they have no effect on my POTS but do help with chest pain/ pressure. Beta blockers made me feel more lightheaded, and almost like I was less aware of things.
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