TinaM

Thank you everyone for your very helpful advice - it is VERY much appreciated! Now I know what to expect and to prepare myself for. It is a very good idea to keep a record of blood pressure & heart rate (sitting &/or lying down + standing at various times during the day for a couple of weeks before my appointment. Hopefully, these readings will be obvious enough that they will point him towards giving me a tilt table test - if not, I will be proactive as you suggest & ask him about it! I will also write down all my symptoms before the appointment & bring the list with me. I am familiar with having to do this during those years I was trying to get endometriosis & fibromyalgia diagnosed.(Boy, autoimmune disorders are a real pain in the butt!! - it is rare to find any quick test that will diagnose them). I learned then how important it was to stand up for myself & be my own advocate. Maybe I will talk to my family doctor as well so I can get all the relevant blood tests done (which I know will all turn out normal) & out of the way before the cardiologist appt. Unfortunalely, in Canada I believe that there are only 2 doctors(both in the east of course!) that actually specialize in POTS. I will let you know how my appointment in April goes. Thank you again denabob, Earth Mother, & Mighty Mouse! - Tina

Hello everyone! This is my 1st time posting here although I have been reading the messages off & on for the past month. I would be very grateful if I could get some views as to whether or not I should go through with an appointment that I have with a cardiologist. I live in Alberta, Canada & it is not easy to get appointment's with specialists here(3 months). The reason my family doctor made it, is that my heart rate has been consistently high for about 6 months - he had me monitoring it & has tried various medications but they have no effect on the heart rate (but I experience many side effects). Anyways, over the past few months, I have been looking around on the Internet at the various types of tachycardia & it seems clear to me from the various symptoms that I have that it is the type called POTS. Briefly, my heart rate increases by more than 30bpm when I stand. Sometimes, my vision will gray out & my hearing dimish for a few seconds on standing. But the worst thing is that every night at the same time(2:00am) I wake up sweating buckets. When I get out of bed and stand up my heart rate sometimes rises as high as 180bpm. This may last about 10 minutes or so. Afterwards, I usually can't get back to sleep for 1-3 hours & I usually very tired in the morning. I also have both endometriosis & fibromyalgia which are both autoimmune related as is supposedly POTS. I have suffered a great deal of skepticism over the past 12 years from the Worker's Comp. Board & many doctors with regard to fibromyalgia. I am still working full time but I can tell you that every day is a huge struggle for me. There is no one at work I can talk to that would understand the pain I suffer daily from fibromyalgia & now yet another problem to deal with?! I am terrified of the thought of going through yet another bunch of tests that show nothing & having to deal with yet more skepticism from the medical community. Is there anything effective that Western medicine can do to treat POTS? Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer!!