POTS

Have you ever heard of POTS? No, not a flower pot, not a kitchen pot, or the drug pot - POTS. It stands for postural tachycardia syndrome.

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If you remember my post in August titled, 'Recumbency' and what I described there as orthostatic intolerance, you have a tiny slice of what POTS is. It is the dizziness, the difficulty of doing anything while sitting or standing, but with a new component: rapid heartbeat. 

After a number of sleep-deprived nights, I noticed my heartbeat was faster and harder than seemed healthy. I counted my pulse, and found that it was a little over 100. During the day, it only became more elevated. The highest I know it got was 120, but a few times after that it was going so fast I couldn't keep straight what I was counting. (That was partially because I was so sleep deprived....) Now, several days and a few good nights of sleep afterward, at night or in the early morning, my heartbeat will be down between 72-76. If I sit up in bed for a few minutes, it will go up by 10 bpm withing a few minutes. (I tried this last night. Lying down heart rate was 72, after sitting up it was 86.) Over the past few days I've counted my pulse several times, and it seems to range somewhere between 90-110, depending on the day. 

I remember briefly reading this PDF on POTS (which I also linked to under Recumbency) so I read it again a few days ago. Before it made sense to me only so far as I identified with certain symptoms of orthostatic intolerance. Now I understand and can identify with much more, such as the blood pressure and heart rate moving in inverse directions once I stand up. It's interesting to feel the processes being described in the paper happening in my body.

This doesn't seem to be as much of a problem now that I've been sleeping better, but I know POTS is something many people with CFS struggle with and I wanted to blog at least a little bit about my experience with it.

What's you're heart beat like? :)