BloodMage

Well..I'm not formally diagnosed or anything, I have a lot of dysautonomia symptoms, so i'll share some of my insights. When I was 18, I lost over 40 lbs. rapidly on a diet just by cutting out soda.I think I was developing mild symptoms before then, and for a while I was attributing that to the aftereffects of a REALLY bad infection I had when I was 13-14 or so. Anyway, when I lost all the weight, the symptoms started hitting me full force. So..i'm not sure if weight loss per se causes it ( I was adopted and found out later that I think my one of my sisters may have similiar, if milder, problems) but I think it helps exacerbate it in some cases.Today I saw some study that overweight teens have a drastic drop in their blood pressures after weight loss.Since hypotension is often a dysautonomia finding, maybe gaining a bit would help buffer the blood pressure lows?

I was 5'6" 165 when I was 18 years old. I think I already had a mild version of my weird symptoms back then.We had nasty well water and I NEVER drank water when I was that age.I decided to lose weight and started buying bottled water. I lost a massive amount of weight and that's when I started noticing my crazy pulse rate/dizziness when standing, etc. really go nuts. Last year I was 114.I ended up in the ER and the nurses called me "malnourished" and thought I had an eating disorder or that I was a drug addict.This also happened in a medical setting a while before that, constant questions about "what drugs I was on". After some very hard work with myself, i've mananged to get up to 120.My weight is such a crazy thing though, I don't want to balloon and get heavy again.I've experienced both sides of the fence on the weight thing.

A while back I went out of my way to print out a HUGE stack of papers on Chinese Medicine diagnostics.Part of it was intellectual curiosity and the other part was experimentation. I didn't want to jab myself with needles, so I started trying to correlate my symptoms with Chinese pulse diagnosis and everything I felt.Heart Blood deficiency and Heart Yin ( I think) deficiency as well as Kidney Qi deficiency fit pretty well.I picked out a few acupressure points to try.Two I remember quite clearly that seemed to help a little with my constant hair-trigger panic/sympathetic weirdness was Sp-6 (san yin jiao) and ht-7 (shen men). You can massage these points for a few minutes and apply a little pressure to them.Sp-6 is about four finger widths from the inside of your ankle bone, and ht-7 is right on the inside crease of your wrist.If you draw a line from between your little finger and your ring finger to there, that's where it is. No cure-alls and no miracles, though.I need to put a disclaimer here because I don't want people to get too carried away with what I say.Nevertheless, I found the "Heart Blood deficiency" pattern very interesting and VERY similiar to dysautonomia.You can read the description online.I wonder if the Chinese saw patients like us over the centuries..

I HAVE THIS WITH NEARLY EVERY SINGLE MEAL!!This makes eating *really* hard.The last time I went to the ER the nurses just assumed I was a junkie or something since I was little, dehydrated and shaking. Well, i've noticed that when I first get up and get out of bed, my heart wants to race or just beat harder.After i've been up a couple of hours it generally gets better.It may be more than just blood sugar with me, for that reason and the fact that my feet turn weird shades of red and purple when I stand for more than a few minutes.Normally I notice this happens even more when it's hot.Hot weather just kills me. I'm supposed to visit a new doctor.He listened to some of my symptoms via my grandmother, and he wants to test my thyroid.Thyroid issues (mainly Grave's disease, etc) run in my family.Last year I did have a thyroid test at the hospital and nothing showed up, though. But i'm getting off topic!

Yes, it's quite hard to eat because every single time I do eat something and particularly if it's carbohydrate-laden, my heart starts to race.I've had this issue for years.I've had an echocardiogram, ekgs, etc.Also had a fasting blood sugar test done.I also need to get a glucose tolerance test done, although no insurance now. I've been experimenting with a small dose of balsamic vinegar (about half a teaspoon) before meals, just in case this is due to a high rise in blood sugar after meals. So far it's been the only thing that has helped, with the exception of low carbohydrate meals.I want to caution everyone else about this though since I think it can also mess with your potassium levels.I've already had hypokalemia before, so i'm just trying half a teaspoon and supplementing with potassium.