Tenacity

I think it likely varies by individual. I can eat large meals just fine. I don't eat any heavily processed food and get most of my calories from carbs in the form of potatoes, fruit and skim milk.

Are you taking any medication? Have your eating habits changed?

I find that my own attacks decrease if I eat enough food and take niacinamide.

According to research, POTS is a state of chronic hypocapnia, low blood CO2 levels, as a result of hyperventilation. Diamox (by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase, which breaks down CO2 into carbonic acid) increases blood CO2 levels.

Thanks for sharing, I always wondered how Diamox might affect people with POTS. I think one explanation of what might be happening is that the symptoms of POTS are a result of a lack of oxygen reaching the brain. Carbon dioxide is required for oxygen to enter the cell, so perhaps the Diamox is allowing the brain to get the oxygen it needs, but isn't correcting the issue that causes the orthostatic tachycardia in the first place, hence the lack of symptoms even in the presence of a high heart rate.

If that's in nmol/L, it's within the normal range, which is 133-537. I've no idea what's optimal, however. Mine was 489.

16 hours ago, Natops said:

Tenacity - Do you think autoimmune channelopathies could cause this physiological stress leading to low oxygen in muscles -  chronic lactic acid buildup / chronic muscle pain?

It's likely that all diseases feature some level of physiological stress. The lack of blood reaching the brain and heart in POTS is enough to stress the cells there. One study found that POTS patients had higher cortisol levels than controls, and cortisol is a marker of physiological stress.

Physiological stress increases the rate of lactic acid produced by cells. It's likely that people with POTS have chronically elevated lactate. People with POTS often have reduced oxygen uptake by muscles, leading to exercise intolerance. The lack of oxygen causes the muscles to produce lactate from glucose - you've probably experienced this from exercise, especially high repetition weight training. I noticed that when I became sick with POTS that I would more easily get the 'burning' feeling from even mild exercise, such as a fast pace up a flight of stairs.

I believe catecholamines do use up magnesium, so it's possible. Fruits, chocolate, coffee, milk and leafy greens are all good sources of magnesium.

I had something similar at the beginning of my illness. It was like an intense lack of appetite, so intense that whenever I put solid food in my mouth, I couldn't bring myself to swallow it - almost like a reflex preventing me from doing so. I subsisted on sugar sweetened milk during that time. It eased off over the period of a few months, where I could eat solids after a few weeks. Today, my appetite is normal, unless I'm having a flare up. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're going through.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5883192/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/26425598/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25274229

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/27638661/

These are the free PMC articles you can read on PubMed about the subject. I haven't read them yet.

The only x-ray I've ever had was a dental x-ray, and I intend to keep it that way. As bunny said, ionising radiation is nasty and increases your risk of many illnesses. Medical radiation is the cause of a vast number of cancer cases.

I'm just like this. My dysautonomia prevents me from sleeping early through insomnia and by jerking me awake whenever I try to drift off. It happens less in the later hours of the evening, so that's when I sleep.

I went from a calm and relatively carefree person to having chronic, constant agitating anxiety when my POTS symptoms first hit me full force, to having just nightly anxiety, to having only occasional reasonable anxiety, all in the space of a year. In my experience, POTS can definitely be a physiological cause of anxiety in and of itself. I suspect hormonal disturbance plays a role. I think just as how some people, like me, become more sensitive to noise when we come down with POTS, we also become more sensitive to our own anxieties.

What do you mean when you say thyroid is high? Do you mean the thyroid hormones, T3 and T4, or do you mean TSH?

I was 21 at the time my symptoms started, 9 months ago in August. There was no trigger as far as I can tell. I just came home from work one evening, rested on my bed, and suddenly felt my heart rate accelerate to 120BPM, where it stayed for the next 6 hours, along with symptoms of anxiety and impending doom. The next morning my heart rate was 90BPM, and the symptoms abated for about a week, until they repeated themselves again. I would suffer from dissociative symptoms, anxiety and bodily pain for the next four months. It was only in February that I realised I had orthostatic tachycardia. Since January my symptoms have been decreasing in frequency and intensity, albeit slowly.  I was found to be vitamin D deficient in March, but that has since been corrected.

I tested negative for a pheochromocytoma and have palpitations whilst lying down, despite having orthostatic tachycardia. Other than the orthostatic tachycardia, which first began alongside the rest of my symptoms, I find that there isn't much difference between symptoms I have when I'm standing up or lying down.

I hope that puts you at ease.