Tachy Phlegming

With bleach or other cleansers, perfume, hairspray, I make sure windows get opened. Same thing with any cooking. Heat has to go off when I get too hot; people are told to wear coats or use heating pads. People love to be around me. If this is normal, I don't see why the people on this forum complain about how "normal" people don't get it. To the extent that I have been told by normal people that they know a lot of people who "can't stand" all of these things, I let them understand how wonderful they'll feel when all of these normally offensive smells and heat are allowed out through the window.

Firewatcher, I thought the same thing at first but the 4th cite in the Wikipedia article is a study ostensibly showing the relationship in humans. The following looks like a pretty good layperson article (although at least one description looks a little wrong) on how blood flow is directed to the penis with Viagra -- (with pictures! -- [ok, they're schematic ] ) (Warning: there is also a very titillating description in this link of what goes on at urology conferences. Who knew? . And again, what happens in Vegas never stays in Vegas.) http://health.howstuffworks.com/viagra.htm What's sort of interesting is that it describes how viagra selectively targets enzymes in the penis and the brain. but then there's also this: http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=8591 Which might help to explain the following: It seems that men with MSA may normally have too much constriction of blood vessels in the penis (?) -- but not in the rest of their bodies and also that Viagra also leads to measurable full-body hypotension in people with MSA because of the way it must affect the right ventricle of the heart (?) whereas it does not in most other people.

It's not clear from what you wrote whether the tachycardia and tremors were from fear or from the medications. Assuming they (and the other symptoms) are from the medications, this would be my strategy. Like Earth Mother said, I'd ask if I could take a small dose at first. I might also want to take the normal dose in the right number of hours but take small increments more frequently. My experiences with medications are weird too. I don't respond normally to them. I read about them too (without fear) and make judgments accordingly. But usually the descriptions have no relation to either my positive response or negative response. I always have to do research after the fact as to why they worked when I didn't have the problem (antibiotics helped with probable cystitis and not an infection -- and other people have found the same), and why I've had such a bizarre reaction with breathing (that drug turned out it be okay in small doses over intervals) or low blood pressure when it's not listed in the side effect profile for the drug. It often makes communication with a doctor about medications a senseless experience -- there is no rhyme or reason to how medicines work for you unless you do a very thorough investigation of the pharmacology of the drug and evaluate it in terms of some of the physical defects you have (and even then, it's not always clear).

Erik wins the proof of research award hands down (or maybe it's just feet down and moving): strong relationships with exercise equipment when vasopressin levels are high, weak relationships with humans when lying down (if I understood that right). For those who wrote about how crabby you get, from your descriptions, I'm not convinced it's aggression so much as discomfort ....

What are the options? You could say "Oh no, I can't believe it", start crying, ask whether your relative feels like he's dying, tell him he'll never get over that fear, tell him how absolutely stoic he is for not complaining ever and working, and discuss his impending death over the next umpteen years. You could instead discuss how optimistic you are about his recovery, say you are unconcerned about the recurrence of the cancer, and call before and after the procedure with words of encouragement. I'd choose the latter. In fact, it might not reflect too well on you for myriad reasons if you choose the former. The relative may also be calmed down considerably by having people downplay the illness. I'd save the first response for relatives who suffer a lot, have a lot of pain, agony, or incapacity from whatever illness it is, cancer or not cancer. (Hint: you'll know when it's bad because they will not be able to do anything without considerations of illness and they'll complain a lot). I don't know, before getting so sick, I always really felt for people with a bunch of strange symptoms who didn't know what they had and felt deathly ill -- and those who had less well-known diseases; I was frightened for their incapacity or early death to the same extent as I was for people with cancer. I still think the same.

Much has been made of the importance of vasopressin on this forum. http://dinet.ipbhost.com/index.php?&ac...ressin&st=0 It turns out that the majority of people in the world are interested in vasopressin not for its regulation of blood pressure and urination but rather for its influence in "pair-bonding" (I don't understand how that is a more important and fascinating research topic than why patients with dysautonomia have polyuria -- and it appears that nobody on this forum understands that either -- but at least this research might give the men on here a way to figure out their vasopressin levels without a lab test ): From http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/human-...is-dna-cheating Why do men and women stray when they are comfortably tucked into a happy partnership? More and more evidence suggests that biology plays a role. One culprit is a gene in the brain?s vasopressin system. In a study of 552 Swedish men and their partners, all either married or co-habiting for at least five years, Walum and colleagues (2008) recently reported that those men with two copies of this particular allele had lower scores on a test of partner bonding (which measured levels of affection, consensus and cohesion); these men also experienced more marital crises and more threats of divorce, and more of these men were involved in a relationship without being married. Those with only one copy of this gene suffered considerably less relationship discord and those with no copies were the most securely bonded. This study did not measure infidelity directly, but it measured several factors likely to contribute to adultery. The Wikipedia article on vasopressin indicates that amount of vasopressin in the male brain is correlated to aggresson and pair- bonding: Moreover, studies involving either injecting AVP agonists into the brain, or blocking the actions of AVP, support the hypothesis that vasopressin is involved in aggression towards other males. There is also evidence that differences in the AVP receptor gene between individual members of a species might be predictive of differences in social behavior. One study has suggested that genetic variation in male humans effects pair-bonding behavior. The brain of males uses vasopressin as a reward for forming lasting bonds with a mate, and men with one or two of the genetic alleles are more likely to experience marital discord. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasopressin So how do you guys fare on the aggression and pair-bonding scale? Assuming you don't have a problem with vasopressin genes but might have a problem with vasopressin levels, do you acutely feel some social defect the same way you feel something is wrong because you have polyuria? And more importantly, do you feel less aggressive and less faithful when your polyuria is worse? If not, do you think that the release of vasopressin into your brain is unrelated to its release elsewhere in your body?

I can have red (and maybe one or two other colors) of gatorade --which I dilute with water, carbonated sugar sodas, instant coffee, and one or to brands of almond milk. That may sound like a lot but it isn't -- and I wanted to have better choices. I've had to cut out one thing or another after getting symptomatic and finally, after months each time, isolating each problem. I would like to be able to have juices, milk, Arabica coffee, soy and other kinds of milks, diet sodas, and even things like "vitamin water"; but all of these liquids irritate my bladder (milk and juice), or my stomach (Arabica coffee and orange juice, soy speeds things along too fast, tomato juice-- still unknown stomach irritant) or make me hoarse (vitamin water) or nauseate me (diet soda). Some of the gatorades have sunflower oil which also gives me stomach pain. Someone posted this recipe a bit ago and I will probably start making my own soon, varying the amounts to my taste (I recently bought citric acid to add to it too but again, I even have to watch my soda and gatorade intake a little because too much can irritate my bladder): http://dinet.ipbhost.com/index.php?act=Sea...lt+%2Bpotassium

Except when standing still, I have inertia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia

The only way I am able to understand it is the way Erika desribed it. It really started in earnest in the heat when I must have had those blood pressure swings. What works pretty well are these meds which are vasoconstrictors. Oral steroids work better and the effects last for months -- on the other hand, I still have to continue taking (less of) the sudafed and Afrin while on steroids. Evoxac would probably work but Prednisone will work just as well and probably somewhat similarly. Restasis I imagine would probably/might do something -- my nicotine spray helps a little right away -- but the effect wears off within minutes. They did a CT scan and found nothing; antibiotics do little. Again, I'm not so concerned about continuing to take sudafed and oxymetazoline and I can feel ok but I am just a little curious about the mechanism (and also why I can't ever get it back to where it was before I got so sick -- that sort of sounds like a mast cell problem but I don't think I have a lot of other stuff associated with those disorders -- I should probably keep looking at it.) Firewatcher, I've never been quite that dedicated. Maybe one week, I should do a lot of Neti pot trials. I do taste fine however ... (when I eat that is, nobody has taken a bite of me )

OK Flop, that was the kind of information I was looking for. I will ask about trying those because of what you wrote. I do control the problem now, so I'm not asking so much because I suffer worse than anyone from it (and I'm sure there are people out there with exactly this problem) but rather because I wanted to see if anyone could write something sophisticated about the reason. Some of those really technical explanations recently on other threads were so elaborate, I was hoping someone could write something creative (? ) for this ... In the rest of this post, I'll respond to what people wrote separating them out as they apply to 3 different GI problems I have: The Nasal/GI problem: 1. 'What if it's non-allergic rhinitis'?!! It's definitely not allergic. Moreover, nasal steroid sprays and nasal anti-histamine sprays do nothing (I wouldn't rule out those things helping with an autonomic problem but in addition to my problem's not being allergic, those things don't help). Thank you for wanting to keep me around. Firewatcher, I can't use a Neti pot because water won't get through my nose to drain anything. And anti-histamine pills might help a little -- I haven't really timed it -- but if anything, it only can make me take the spray and pseudoephedrine at slightly longer intervals; also, the only antihistamines that might work would make me too tired to take them the way I take the spray anyway. I still have my tonsils but I can swallow easily even with this problem at its worst (I rarely have difficulty swallowing but also have had that problem occasionally since getting really sick). If there's a sinus infection, no doctor has been able to find it. The problem has been there for years. I have to treat this problem before I eat anything; this problem has nothing to do with food allergies. As far as talking to doctors, the latest ENT doctor was the one who told me he wished he had this problem so he could lose weight. (I just said "No you don't" with a big smile.) He told me about the evils of oxymetazoline (evil or not, without oxymetazoline, I can't eat without pain and a higher heart rate and I therefore think it's the lesser of whatever evils are out there -- pain and a high heart rate are not good things). My GI doctors have been interested in biopsies and what they can see on tests. The Breathing/GI problem: 2. I have GI problems that also get bad in the heat which are not connected to the stuffed nose. That feels like it's from the difficulty breathing in my chest which I have in the heat. This problem and the one in 3. feel like what Lissy described. The Food/GI problem: 3. I also have GI problems from foods. But these are also not connected to "allergies." Even when I have problems with specific foods, I show absolutely nothing on food allergy tests. A couple of my food "problems" make my GI tract feel the way the heat makes it (my GI tract) feel. Whether this problem is MCAD I don't know for sure but I suspect that it may not be because some of the food problems feel like my heat-induced breathing GI problem (#2 above). I don't have flushing ...

What you wrote in large part describes all my other problems with food BellaMia! I guess we haven't exactly figured those out either but there are a few threads which tried ... Happily, I never got to Ensure...

Thanks for your input but most of what you wrote is too close to the common descriptions a doctor gives or what a webpage has; the descriptions do not address my specific problem and remedies don't help. My nasal problems occur with my heart rate problems. It was very apparent at my worst. I could not stop my nose from running or my heart from beating faster in the heat. Whatever autonomic defect I have causes both to occur at the same time and the severity of both problems goes up at the same time. Eating aggravated both but seemed a little better when I could at least treat the nasal problem. Also, easy remedies won't help. My heart rate and nasal problems are a lot worse after I eat with this problem. Throwing up so that I could breathe one to three hours after eating (the symptoms got worse after eating) would be a better idea than smaller bites. (I never did that -- I just didn't eat when I knew it would be too excruciating but tried to eat a lot when I could even when it hurt a fair amount and made it hard for me to breathe). I lived for years without Oxymetazoline. I never got better. I was always in pain from eating without it. And I felt horrible all the time. When I started because I thought I had an unrelated cold, a lot of symptoms were helped significantly. But three days would not have been adequate and the one time I got off it for a fairly long (no rebound), I was still miserable without it. I wouldn't have taken pseudoephedrine at my worst -- because I was very concerned about exactly what you wrote. But maybe I should have .... at the moment, I can't quite figure it out. At this point, I need to take it. (Monitoring my heart rate and having my doctor care? )

For myriad and different reasons, I have stopped or limited eating periodically with this disease. One of the problems is clogged sinuses. My heart rate has gone up, my nose has clogged more, and I've gotten worse agitation from eating in this condition. Now I take the following to resolve this problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymetazoline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoephedrine Do you need to breathe through your nose to eat? Do you need a certain amount of oxygen to eat? Is the problem in my nose really also a problem with blood vessels in my GI tract that these drugs also treat even though what I take mostly targets the nose? Does my stuffed nose indicate a lack of proper vasoconstriction through my whole body and tell me I can get postprandial hypotension and do the drugs help my whole body (pseudoephedrine can cause [whole body] hypertension)? I have asked similar questions of doctors and received inaccurate responses or adulation (from a slightly overweight doctor) for having genes which code for the long sought-after panacea for appetite suppression (anyone want gene therapy to get these genes? ). I can't find much online which helps me to understand this better. So to those of you who actually do sit around and think about these issues, are up on the research, and perform similar experiments on your own bodies, thanks in advance for postulating a plausible mechanism for this problem.

I do very well in cold teperatures but I remember once coming in from 20F into a heated place and almost immediately feeling weak to the point of collapse. At the time, it made absolutely no sense to me and I just figured I had a lower end of temperature tolerances which I had not previously suspected.

Lissy, what I wrote didn't stand alone because I was answeing questions raised in a lot of posts -- and maybe that is what was hard to understand. I also use subordinate clauses, some long sentences, a few double entendres, and have a sense of humor not everyone understands or likes -- so if you're not used to that -- you may need to read it a few times. I do try to be clear nonetheless (I wouldn't vouch for Erik on that score but I nonetheless always enjoy reading what he writes -- if I have to read it a second time to get the full import, my already high estimation of his intelligence goes up that much more). To summarize, I was saying first of all, I agreed with Ramakentesh, and merely explaining that doctors and our friends and family should address the physiological and physical basis of our disease so that we don't get sick in the first place -- because being sick is what makes us look anxious. Second of all (to address what Erik brought up), talking about how to deal with being sick by trying to ignore the sick feeling (in whatever way we can) is ok but whatever mental process we use to feel better shouldn't be confused with the physical problem which got us sick. I compared the relationship between POTS and anxiety (may look the same to some people if they're not paying attention but actually sounds and looks very different) to the following: A normal person in severely hot or extremely low pressure situation and anxiety (may look the same to some people if they can't figure out the normal person is in poor conditions but actually sounds and looks very different). Death and catatonia (may look the same but actually sounds and looks very different. At any rate, I hope that was easy to understand on the first read.

What Ramakentesh said properly summarizes the phenomenon Erik. What is medically and socially important to know in this instance is that the severe agitation and suffering you experience and which in many peoples' cases changes their entire affect/appearance is not psychogenic or caused by thoughts but rather caused by a physiological process which either serves to regulate your blood pressure or which serves no purpose at all. And it's important to understand that just as it isn't psychogenic, it shouldn't be treated medically and shouldn't be treated socially as if it were -- just as in the case of other physical conditions which cause people to appear severely agitated like hyperthyroidism. Whether you are more prone to say something you wouldn't think if you were not subjected to orthostatic stress or whether you try to zone out or otherwise enjoy life with this physical problem is completely irrelevant to this discussion. The points are: ?What caused it?? ?What?s the proper way to remedy the defect?? Socially, the point is: ?Did this person make himself sick? What kind of illness is this? Is this person suffering an awful lot? Is the illness very scary? (It?s the most scary because it hits the pathway which is responsible for fear in normal people in the most terrifying of any of life?s circumstances.) ---- Just imagine putting a person without dysautonomia in low pressure or steaming hot conditions he can't tolerate and talking about whether he is thinking thoughts which got him to appear agitated. And imagine not getting him out of those environments ever and continuing to talk such drivel. What the normal person says in such a state may be interesting but it is not a reflection of his disordered thinking when he is in proper conditions. He may be induced to think his thinking is disordered but the only reason someone would tell him it?s his (the person in low pressure or extreme heat) fault is if that person himself (the person who explains the reason the other person feels so bad) is extremely ignorant of basic physiology. Or imagine trying to wake the dead out of a ?medical? belief that they are actually catatonic and maybe amenable to talk therapy. (Where else would the expression about ?waking the dead? have come from?) Happily, the dead couldn?t care less about a doctor?s insistence that they can be awakened. (Unless some awaken out of complete exasperation at the doctor's ignorance ) These are physiological problems which can't be remedied by discussing what the person is thinking or by treatment with medications which are used to remedy problems caused by totally different or mental problems (unless, as may be the case with some people on this forum, the entire physiological problem runs along that pathway -- which is not the case for many people on here). And P.S. I can?t imagine anyone?s thinking that we are cold-hearted. I usually think I am hot-blooded. At worst, some of us may run hot and cold (but again, that's all physical. As you see again, it's the psychological incursions which get us into trouble ).

As to the ghosts, my guess is that they don't have fingernails. http://i-love-cartoons.com/snags/clipart/C...endly-Ghost.php On the other hand, I think this is a real tourist attraction so maybe they do: http://www.ghosthounds.com/modules.php?nam...pic&p=48338 It does however sound sort of pleasant. In all seriousness, I'm sure that the scratches are not caused by a ghost and you will eventually have a better idea of what is causing the marks -- but it may take time to figure out what it is.

Yes well and of course, that wasn't the medical truth. The medical truth was/is what you have and the scientific principles which explain it. That response is nonetheless 1,000x better than a misleading answer. I hope you also asked what he had planned to tell you had you been like most patients.

Knowing you have dysautonomia, those of you who think this is something other than physical may very well need to have your heads examined -- with one caveat -- if you only have orthostatic symptoms, be sure not to lie on your therapist's couch because you might not have anything to talk about. I am so inspired by a few pseudointellectual comments here that I am posting a link to a concept in physics which I am sure will advance your interdisciplinary understanding of this topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement Enjoy!

As I experience this odd sensation, the phenomenon in fact would appear to transcend gender and only require that we be on the same wavelength -- (as accords with the very precise definition of "transcengenderdentalism"). As such, I wouldn't end up with exactly those masculine parts of anyone's essence even if it were a man. And my behavior isn't really affected except that I complain about the sensation. ----- When I have kept most symptoms at bay for a long time, I nonetheless inevitably get the feeling 2-3 hours before it rains (whether I know the weather forecast or not) -- and a certain number of hours in advance of the monthly event. With my recent new treatments, I have just stepped up dosages without thinking about it and have had the pleasure of not feeling this way before these two types of events for the first time in many years.

There is a very important (philosophical) question I have regarding the topic in this thread. When I feel this way, I say that I don't feel like myself. After seeing what people write on this board, I have started to wonder whether other people feel like me. So that would first entail that other people also don't feel like themselves. Now, the very deep question is of course, when we don't feel like ourselves, who feels like whom? So for example, when I don't feel like myself, do I actually feel the way Erik feels when he does feel like himself? And what I really want to know of course, is who is feeling like me when I don't feel like myself. (So if it's someone on this forum, please tell me!) On a more serious note, in my case, when I have this sensation, I always have phlegm stuck in my chest (and I don't feel that I have the phlegm so knowing that this was what caused the sensation took me forever). However, when I can cough up that (usually only one) plug of phlegm, the sensation goes away within minutes. If I had a lot of exposure to whatever made me sick, it would probably be harder to get rid of the problem (but at my worst, I had no idea that coughing up this phlegm would help so I don't know if I could get rid of the problem if I were really at my sickest). And of course, I wouldn't know certainly if what gets me to cough is also what gets rid of the feeling or whether it is the phlegm itself which is what prevents me from feeling like myself (but it feels like the latter because I have to cough before the feeling goes away).

Keratosis pilaris. For years, I thought I was so unique and special (champion heart racer and all) and through this forum, have come to the dismal realization that everything I do from how much I sit, stand, and the type of exercise I do and the food I can eat is shared by a few people or everyone on here. Keratosis pilaris (not terribly severe) is the only thing about my body that seems unique to me on this board.

Indeed, "Fe" and "fer" are for iron, so I thought I'd need some congruence there ... I agree about Zamboni and the patent. I'm glad to hear Bologna sounds more trustworthy than Zamboni to you. I'm not so sure about the gold skin/clothes thing. I mean we know these are invisible illnesses...

For those having a bad-symptom day or an otherwise bad time of it, this is to distract you or make you smile for a few minutes (I hope), and is dedicated to your enjoyment. Here is the link to the article recently posted on here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation...article1372414/ And here is the new version : Researcher's labour of love leads to POTS breakthrough Chase Ravioli was a seemingly healthy 37-year-old when she began to experience strange attacks of high pulse, numbness, temporary vision loss and difficulty breathing. They were classic signs of dysautonomia, a debilitating neurological disease. It was 1995 and her husband, Salome Bologna, a professor of medicine at the University of Oro in Italy, set out to help. He was determined to solve the mystery of POTS ? an illness that strikes people in the prime of their lives but whose causes are unknown and whose treatments are all over the map but not completely effective. What he learned in his medical detective work, scouring dusty old books and using ultra-modern imaging techniques, could well turn what we know about POTS on its head (or on its feet, as patients would like to be): Dr. Bologna's research suggests that POTS is not, as widely believed, a cardiac or neurological condition, but a vascular-metal disease, similar to what new research is indicating for MS. In MS, veins and arteries are clogged by iron deposits. In POTS, by contrast, gold binds to acetylcholine receptors and is also deposited in the vascular endothelium. More radical still, the experimental reverse alchemical chelation Dr. Bologna had his wife undergo offers hope that POTS, which afflicts .5 million people in the United States, can be cured and even largely prevented. Chelation is a process by which a metal is compounded with another substance which then takes the metal out of the body. Alchemy is the science of creating gold out of other substances. Reverse alchemical chelation transforms the gold into a sulfur-containing compound which is then expelled as flatus. ?I am confident that this could be a revolution for the diagnosis and treatment of dysautonomia,? Dr. Bologna said in an interview. Fighting for his wife's health, Dr. Bologna looked for answers in the medical literature. He found repeated references, dating back a century, to excess gold as a possible cause of POTS . The precious metal can cause high pulse and anxiety, hallmarks of the disease. Using ultrasound to examine the nerves of the autonomic nervous system and vascular endothelia, Dr. Bologna made a startling find: In more than 90 per cent of people with dysautonomia, including his spouse, there was gold in these structures. In people without POTS, there was none of the precious metal. More striking still was that when Dr. Bologna used a simple reverse alchemical chemical technique to unclog veins and get blood flowing normally again, many of the symptoms of POTS disappeared. The procedure is similar to iron chelation. His wife, who had the chelation, has not had an attack since. The initial studies done in Italy were small but the outcomes were dramatic. In a group of 65 patients with never-ending multi-symptom POTS (the most common form) who underwent chelation procedure, the amount of gold in the brain and heart fell sharply, to 12 per cent from 50 per cent; in the two years after surgery, 73 per cent of patients had no symptoms. -------- A researcher, Mark Thespot, an adjunct professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, is urging patients to send him MRI scans of their heads and necks so he can probe the Bologna theory further. Dr. Mark Thespot is a world-renowned expert in imaging who has developed a method of measuring gold buildup in the brain and heart. ---- Dysautonomia societies in Canada and the United States, however, have reacted far more cautiously to Dr. Bologna's conclusion. The U.S. society is particularly against this research, discouraging patients from getting tested or seeking chelation treatment. Rather, it continues to promote drug treatments used to alleviate symptoms, which include mestinon, beta blockers, florinef, midodrine, and most other medications described in the PDR. The reason for this is that the reverse alchemical chelation converts the gold into sulfur compounds and produces only flatus. The U.S. Society wants the patients to preserve the gold in their veins until such time as a different technique which allows the elimination of the gold deposits as solid gold bowel movements is developed. POTS patient Ravioli said ?There might be a point to waiting. I was always treated terribly at the doctor?s office; if my bowel movements were worth a million dollars to my doctor, I?d be treated as if I were worth my weight in gold. If I had any further complications, I?d know I?d be treated promptly. Having done the reverse alchemical chelation, I?m not exactly the valuable patient I might have been.? Ziti said ?I wouldn?t be shuttled from doctor to doctor for my various symptoms because all of the sudden, everyone would specialize in dysautonomia. Heck, I could charge my doctors for my visits and all I would need to do is produce a stool sample whenever I needed medical care.? Another (anonymous) POTS patient said simply ?I?d like to see for myself how emotional stress, excitement, and anxiety produce a high pulse and fainting because my doctors kept telling me about that for years and it never made any sense to me. Now everyone is saying that they?re pretty sure that the doctors will have this emotional reaction to their POTS patients when they see the gold stools! I?ll finally be able to give the devil his due.? The President himself has gotten involved with this search for a chelation process which allows the gold simply to be excreted as gold. He has indicated that he thinks that this product of POTS patients might be the solution to the medical care crisis in this country. He indicated that education about dysautonomia would be stepped-up so that doctors could mine many currently undiagnosed patients for gold. Of the current reverse alchemical chelation protocol, the President said only ?That just stinks.? Many people with dysautonomia, though, are impatient for results. Chatter about chelation is frequent in online POTS support groups, and patients are scrambling to be part of the research, particularly when they hear the testimonials. They think by and large that the search for a chelation procedure where they produce gold stools for the price of a Big Mac is a pipe dream. Radar Blip, a 49-year-old resident of Buffalo, was diagnosed with POTS a decade ago and has suffered increasingly severe attacks, especially in the heat. (Heat sensitivity is a common symptom of POTS.) His symptoms were so bad that he was unable to work and closed his ice-chip shop. Mr. Blip was tested and then had the reverse alchemical chelation. He began to feel better almost immediately. ?I felt good. I felt totally normal. I felt like I did years ago,? he said. He has not had a series of POTS crises since.? As part of the research project, Mr. Blip's siblings have also been tested. His two sisters, both of whom have POTS, have significant blockages and gold deposits, while his brother, who does not have POTS, has neither gold buildup nor blocked arteries. It is well-established that the symptoms of POTS are caused by defects in the autonomic nervous system. When those messages are blurred by gold, the autonomic nervous system malfunctions, causing all manner of woes, including blurred eyesight, frequent numbness in the limbs and even fainting. While he is convinced of the significance of his discovery, Dr. Bologna recognizes that medicine is slow to accept new theories and even slower to act on them. Regardless, he can take satisfaction in knowing that the woman who inspired the quest, and perhaps a dramatic breakthrough, has benefitted tremendously and that doctors will probably be treating POTS patients with deep respect, knowing they have heart, minds, veins, (and maybe one day even x!) of gold. Dr. Bologna's wife, Chase, has undergone a battery of scans and neurological tests and her dysautonomia is, for all intents and purposes, gone. ?She no longer has a heart of gold but still and all, this is probably the best prize of the research,? he said.

Acetylcholine, IIRC, tends to activate muscarinic and nicotinic receptors. Here is the language in Wikipedia (I put the part he is talking about in bold): Receptors Main article: Acetylcholine receptor There are two main classes of acetylcholine receptor (AChR), nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChR). They are named for the ligands used to activate the receptors. [edit] Nicotinic Nicotinic AChRs are ionotropic receptors permeable to sodium, potassium, and chloride ions. They are stimulated by nicotine and acetylcholine. They are of two main types, muscle type and neuronal type. The former can be selectively blocked by curare and the latter by hexamethonium. The main location of nicotinic AChRs is on muscle end plates, autonomic ganglia (both sympathetic and parasympathetic), and in the CNS.[7] from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcholine