The Effects of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome On Health

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS often occurs with other conditions and can cause troubling and debilitating symptoms. It can also be very frightening, so here’s what you need to know about POTS and what it means for your health.

01:19 - What is POTS?
01:55 - Who is most affected by POTS?
03:15 - Symptoms of POTS
04:36 - Is it POTS, or anxiety?
05:26 - What causes POTS?
06:55 - Adrenal Fatigue and POTS
08:37 - What you can do about it

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Transcript

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD: 0:06

Have you heard of POTS? Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system that can cause a lot of worry and stress. It can also cause some very frightening symptoms. The best way to overcome this kind of fear is to learn more about this condition, which is why we're talking about tachycardia, and specifically, POTS, today on the Dr. Lam Show. I'm Dr. Carrie Lam. And in my years as an anti aging and family medicine specialist, I see many people who have experienced POTS. I've also helped them understand and overcome this condition, which is what I want to help you with today.

Dr. Jeremy Lam, MD: 0:41

I'm Dr. Jeremy Lam, I'm a specialist in chronic conditions, many of which cause POTS as well. So this subject is a special interest to me, and to the patients that I help. So I am really eager to get started today. To start out, let's take a closer look at what POTS is, and the symptoms associated with it. Any illness that's directly related to the dysfunction of your autonomic nervous system has a collective name of dysautonomia. Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS is a subset of dysautonomia. And so POTS is when you go up from a sitting position to an upright, your heart rate increases disproportionately, causing a sudden and drastic increase in your heart rate.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD: 1:37

It can also happen when you're going from lying down to sitting up, right? So, any posture difference from lying down to sitting up, or sitting up to standing up, causing that increase in heart rate over 100 beats per minute, is tachycardia. Interestingly, majority of POTS patient around 75% are females of menstrual age and a small portion does happen during pregnancy. Males that tend to develop POTS are usually in their early to mid teens. So this condition normally arises for them during their growth spurt or maybe after a bacterial viral infection. So about 25% of patients are disabled by this condition, it really affects their system. When you are in a resting position or lying down, approximately a quarter of your blood is in the chest cavity. Then when you stand up, a large portion of his blood flows out of your chest, into your abdomen and your legs due to the force of gravity and to ensure an adequate supply of blood to your brain to prevent from fainting. The sympathetic nervous system is activated automatically. And then norepinephrine is released by the brain which is what the sympathetic response is. And what the norepinephrine does is it goes to the heart and your blood vessels, your heart rate is increased due to blood vessels narrowing. In turn, the blood flow to the brain is increased, helping you prevent fainting. But what happens in people with POTS Dr. Jeremy?

Dr. Jeremy Lam, MD: 3:15

Well, many POTS associated symptoms are due to the inability of the blood to move to the brain very quickly. Now norepinephrine also plays a part as it released when your body is in a stressful situation. So its job is also to ensure that a steady supply of blood is going to your brain which is necessary for survival. Once this stressful situation is over, then heart rate and blood pressure returns back to normal. In some instances, the activation of the sympathetic nervous response and feedback mechanisms fail. And so then there is no normalization of blood flow to the heart and the brain. So POTS symptoms tend to come up, such as lower blood pressure and also a rise in heart rate. WHich means POTS can really present a variety of symptoms. These symptoms include lightheadedness, dizziness while standing, constant fatigue or tiredness, heart palpitations, anxiety. They can even have GI problems such as vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, cramps or bloating. Brain fog is something we see often, hypoglycemia, shortness of breath, and sometimes visual problems as well.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD: 4:36

Added to this a lot of people tend to have anxiousness, so they get mislabeled as anxiety, because the constant release of epinephrine and norepinephrine and many clinical results suggest borderline POTS. Given that majority of POTS patients have a large variety of symptoms, it can be hard to properly understand what is truly underlying this problem. If you are going through POTS symptoms and they sound familiar to you, but you don't really know what to do and you're frightened and confused, don't worry, we can help you if you call us at 714-709-8000 You can have a free initial phone call and we can get you more specialized advice and assistance about pots. So what causes POTS Dr. Jeremy?

Dr. Jeremy Lam, MD: 5:26

POTS symptoms mostly occur in young woman, and so a lot of it can be associated with hormones that might affect younger women. Many teenage girls who develop this condition often find it gradually disappearing after a few years. For others who have undergone chronic stress, their symptoms might still be debilitating. And so causes of POTS include viral illness, trauma, diabetes, and high blood sugar . Autoimmune conditions such as lupus, cancer can also cause POTS. Amyloidosis, which is the production of an abnormal protein in the blood marrow that accumulates in your tissues and organs. Sjögren's syndrome, which is another autoimmune condition where your immune system attacks your tear ducts and your salivary glands, alcohol or metal poisoning, and sometimes genes as well. When you have abnormal faulty genes that can result in a high production of norepinephrine or epinephrine, that can also be a cause of POTS. Also note that someone who has adrenal fatigue could also be suffering from it.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD: 6:59

Although many people with adrenal fatigue can suffer from symptoms, they are often less drastic. Those without adrenal fatigue, and people with adrenal fatigue that have POTS are usually more of a subclinical picture. So if your symptoms are not as severe as the ones of typical Postural Tachycardia Syndrome, you might be referred to as subclinical POTS, or early on diagnose POTS or early POTS. If you're tested for it, but you don't really have very severe symptoms, your doctor might send you home saying you have POTS like symptoms, and maybe they'll give you some medications like beta blockers to alleviate some of the symptoms. But make sure that you find out what the root causes are, because if your symptoms are not severe, then you want to check if you have adrenal fatigue, and or helping the sympathetic overtone from the adrenal fatigue might help your symptoms. So there is a very strong link between adrenal fatigue and POTS tachycardia, and many symptoms overlap. Many people can get very confused and struggle to find a solution. If you're one of them, you know, call our team at 714709 1000. So we can help determine whether adrenal fatigue has a role in what you're experiencing and help you fix the root cause. We've looked at some potential causes of tachycardia, and what it's actually like. Let's look at some ways to alleviate symptoms and give you some peace of mind.

Dr. Jeremy Lam, MD: 8:37

To manage POTS, there's a couple of things that you should consider. The first thing is to make sure that you don't start a nutritional supplement program without proper consideration and consultation. That's because you need a master recovery plan. Proper use of nutritional supplements can make worse in the subclinical parts and it can also trigger a general crash and we see this often. Make sure you consult a medical practitioner to also rule out whether you have primary POTS. You want to focus on the underlying metabolic imbalance and allow the body to heal itself by using nutritional program instead of drugs and medication if possible. Irritable bowel symptoms should be stabilized by having probiotics to help facilitate the food assimilation from the gut. Want to try to avoid antibiotics if needed as they can upset your intestinal flora? Adrenal breathing exercises enhance the parasympathetic tone and reduce the sympathetic overtone and can help with the symptoms as well. Make sure some people think that detoxing can actually help. Aggressive detoxification can actually trigger POTS. What about medications or care.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD: 10:03

If you have no other choice, and you've tried all these other things that you're talking about, then you might have to use medication to at least control the heart rate in the beginning. But you definitely want to get to the root cause whether it's psychological or physiological or environmental, especially stress that can be causing your triggers for the POTS. So remove and identify all these toxins and allergens from your surroundings. Another thing that's important for helping with POTS is getting a good night's sleep, and improving your gut health being less inflammatory by avoiding inflammatory foods, Increasing your fiber and complex carbohydrate intake, and a balanced diet. Some people with POTS tend to need more salt. So this is a salt challenge that we tend to tell our patients to increase their sodium intake if they don't have high blood pressure. And they might feel a little more supported with more salt intake. Some people get a lot of symptoms when they don't eat enough, they get hypoglycemic, and that can also cause some of their POTS symptoms. Eating smaller and frequent meals may reduce the symptoms. Make sure you're drinking enough water. Then there are some herbs that might be able to just calm the system especially sympathetics. So that would be ginger and turmeric are more anti inflammatory and then peppermint would also be a good one for calming. These are all tips that you can do to help manage POTS. If you are still struggling despite trying all of these, know that you're not alone. There is hope for you to find the root cause and to help manage this tachycardia and adrenal fatigue. That's all we have for you today on the Dr. Lam Show. If you found this helpful, please subscribe to the channel so we can keep on sending you more great content, improve your life and empower you to take control of your health.

Unknown: 12:17

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