Just to say, I am 19 and male (Hi). I was diagnosed with POTS around age 13 and at the time it was okay with me. sure, i have less endurance and i get tired easily, no big deal. I was wrong. I used to play hockey very cometitivly and i had to give it up when i reached the age of 15. I was a very active person, i loved to move and stay moving, i had to give that up. these days my life is dull. while i do have friends i can spend very little time outside of school with them. i don't have the energy to go out and be able to get up the next day. infact if i don't get to bed by 11 i probably won't wake up the next morning until sometime after 11am. all i really have energy for nowadays is to sit, watch TV, read, eat and sleep. thats a typical day for me. Because of this disease i have to have a shortened scedule at school, and because of that i am still a Senior in high school. I'm supposed to go to college next year. how am i supposed to deal with college when i can barely handle what i have? our family is having trouble with money because i'm on 19 pills a day just to keep me going, and i can't even get a job to help because i won't have any energy for school or anything else. I have kept praying that this is just a nightmare and that i'll wake up. and the possibility that i may be like this the rest of my life is a taboo; i simply don't even want to think about it. I have given up my active lifestyle, but i used to be an active guy, and i still love being active. just sitting drives me crazy. you'd think i'd be over this by now, and as it turns out as i get older and more options open up to me, i can't do anything more because i don't have the energy to do anything else. Dr. Grubb has been a godsend, he has helped me understand my disease and what is possible and what is not (he also taught me how i'm now extremely vulnerable to high elevations, long story short, don't try to cross any continental divides). And as nice of a guy he really is, i wish i never had to meet him. I know we all do but this is getting to be to much for me. I grow more distant from my friends and ever closer to seclusion, i just want it to end! EDIT: I'm starting to feel a bit better, i just really needed to get that out of my system.