What is POTS?

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, which is the system responsible for regulating many of the things our bodies do automatically.

When a person without POTS stands up, the body makes a series of rapid adjustments to keep enough blood returning to the heart and brain. Blood vessels constrict, the heart adjusts, and blood pressure and blood flow are regulated largely without us noticing.

In POTS, this process doesn’t work as effectively.

The body compensates by significantly increasing heart rate, and accessing other compensatory strategies, depending on the type of POTS.

Symptoms can include:

• dizziness or light-headedness

• fatigue

• brain fog and difficulty thinking

• headaches

• exercise intolerance

• nausea and other gastrointestinal symptoms

• temperature regulation difficulties

• shakiness, palpitations or feeling “wired”

• difficulty remaining upright for long periods

These symptoms can affect multiple body systems, fluctuate from day to day, and be difficult to describe using the language we commonly associate with illness and disability. When someone’s experience doesn’t fit familiar ideas of what being “sick” or “disabled” is supposed to look like — particularly when symptoms are invisible, variable, or unexplained — it can be difficult even to know what language to use. Without a diagnosis, people may feel they don’t have the right to describe themselves as ill or disabled, despite experiencing very real limitations in their everyday lives.

That gap between what is happening inside the body, what other people can see, and how we describe it is something I’m particularly interested in exploring through my research.