#I think I might have pots or something under the dysautonomia umbrella

[andresmounts2]

Shoutout to the disabled people out there who know that something's wrong with them, but haven't gotten a diagnosis because it's inaccessible.

[vro0m]

Quick off topic post :

October is dysautonomia awareness month

What is dysautonomia?

It's an umbrella term for a category of health conditions affecting the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that handles all the bodily functions you don't have to think about : heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, kidney function, temperature regulation, etc.

What are the signs and symptoms of dysautonomia?

Depends on the specific condition but if you frequently suffer from : fatigue, dizziness, heart palpitations, chest pains, fainting, low blood pressure, digestive issues, brain fog, exercise intolerance, urinary issues, and/or sweating issues, you might want to look into it.

What is POTS?

POTS stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and it is the most common form of dysautonomia.

It causes symptoms usually upon standing up (or at least made worse by standing up) such as fatigue, lightedheadness, heart palpitations, an excessive increase in heart rate, brain fog, weakness, and sometimes fainting spells (and an overall feeling that something is fucking wrong and you're about to pass out).

It is super easy to diagnose but doctors often don't know about it : a heart rate increase upon standing of 30bpm if you're older than 20 and 40bpm if you're younger, in the absence of a drop in blood pressure, causing symptoms. Simple af. You just need a heart rate monitor.

Why raise awareness about it?

Because it is way more common than we think, incredibly under diagnosed, and it can be very debilitating depending on how severe it is (I personally had to drop out of uni for a year when I got symptomatic because I couldn't walk more than a few meters).

It can have some serious causes such as diabetes, Ehlers Danlos syndrome, and auto-immune diseases, but more importantly it can also be caused by viral infections and it's a known mechanism in Long COVID.

So protect yourselves and others : get vaxxed, get tested if you have COVID symptoms, wear a mask especially if you have symptoms, and don't become chronically ill because people told you it was "just a cold". It's not.

Cheers!

[tj-crochets]

Hey does anyone else with one or more forms of dysautonomia* have a thing where if they have a moderate-to-severe physical stressor (like a severe allergic reaction, getting a vaccine, stuff like that), they get a new bonus dysautonomia for a few days to a few weeks? I thought it was a side effect of allergic reactions for me**, but this vaccine I had pretty much zero allergy symptoms but am having new issues, so I think it might be more general. A few times, I've had increased issues with low blood sugar for usually only a few days, but sometimes as much as a month or two after a severe allergic reaction. Once, I had waaaaay over-sensitive adrenaline reactions for a while (bad enough that I watched an episode of gamechanger and had to stop because I got too tense and my heartrate shot up). A few times, including this time, my thermoregulation seems to be very off. Like, it's not great in general, but now I am sweating so easily which is not normal for me (and not good with my salt issues) *my diagnoses that fall under that umbrella, more or less, include but are not limited to: salt wasting syndrome, POTS, possibly MCAS, tachycardia (separate from the POTS), and "something is weird about your endocrine system, maybe Addison's?" **I did bring this up with my allergist! He said "Allergies don't do that". I said "If it's not allergy related, then why does benadryl help?". He stared at me for a while, then said "I don't know. Allergies shouldn't do that"