Me and Pots

In 2013 I had a herniated disc operation. After this operation I slowly developped dizziness when standing, walking, moving up and down.. actually with all movements the body can make. The dizziness did not occcur when I was sitting or lying down.

At first the dizziness occurred after an hour walking. I started feeling lightheaded which was followed up by an extreme fatigue, like I had run a marathon. During this fatigue I experienced difficulties with thinking, talking,  my short term memory and recalling words. Upon standing my heart started to beat faster and I felt a lot of inner unrest in my body. In the beginning I attributed the dizziness to my difficult recovery of the operation, but when I was recovered  from the operation the dizziness was still there.   

    Image courtesy of Dysautonomia International, copyright 2019

 
In june 2017 I got the diagnosis Pots. This was assessed after a tilt table test by Dr. Visser, a Dutch cardiologist specialized in Pots. During this tilt table test, a 27 % drop of blood volume from my brain was recorded when I was put in a vertical position.

One of the criteria for Pots is that upon standing the heart rate increases a minimum of 30 beats per minute. On average my heartrate increases with 30-40 beats per minute when I stand or when I am physically active.

At first I was relieved that I finally knew what was wrong with me, but when the cardiologist told me that there was no known cure for Pots I was quite in shock. I was open to try the general advices to manage the symptoms. These are: vasoconstricting medication, drinking a lot of water, increasing the intake of salt and wearing support stockings. These measures can help to a certain level but are not able to take all the symptoms away.

According to the protocol I started with the medication Mestinon which did nothing for me. I took a daily high salt intake and I drank about two liters of water a day, but it did not help. The cardiologist explained that I could try other kinds of medication but the outlook towards a lifelong medication regime which only tries to supress the symptoms was not very attractive to me.

I wanted to heal myself from Pots but what was causing it?

A link to hypermobility

As there is a strong link between Pots and hypermobility, I started searching for a treatment that could diminish this hypermobility. I came across an article which talked about Prolotherapy, an injection therapy which could decrease Pots symptoms by reducing the hypermobility in the neck. Hypermobility in the neck is seen as one of the possible causes of Pots syndrome since the hypermobile discs may deregulate the function of the autonomic nervous system.

As I experienced that my neck was instable (I could feel and hear the discs in my neck slipping away when I moved my neck) I wanted to try prolotherapy as a treatment for my Pots. So I searched for a doctor and I came in contact with Dr. Mulder, who is the most specialised doctor in the Netherlands concerning prolotherapy,  Dr. Mulder was willing to give me injections in my neck and back.

Used with permissi n from Ross Hauser, MD and Caring Medical Regenerative Medicine Clinics. CaringMedical.com