Psychological Correlates of Patients With Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) (2020) Fisher et al.

(Not a recommendation) (can i roll my eyes?)

Psychological Correlates of Patients With Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)
All authors from Cleveland clinic

Abstract
Psychological symptoms are frequently reported in patients with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS); however, the nature of these symptoms is not well understood.

The current study described baseline psychological symptoms in patients with POTS, and examined associations between psychological and self-report autonomic symptoms.

Participants reported mild anxiety symptoms, moderate depressive symptoms, severe somatization, and elevated anxiety sensitivity.

Depressive symptoms and pain catastrophizing were significantly associated with autonomic symptoms.

The current study adds to the literature by documenting elevated levels of anxiety sensitivity, and relationships between psychological and autonomic symptoms.

Highlights

Patients with POTS exhibit significant challenges pertaining to psychological symptoms and quality of life.

Anxiety sensitivity may be the more prominent manifestation of anxiety in patients with POTS.

Autonomic symptoms are correlated with increased impairment in depression, pain catastrophizing and quality of life.

Findings support existing theories that psychological symptoms may be a response to physical symptoms


Link to paper here (Paywall)

 

Here is an explanation on the term ‘anxiety sensitivity’ from wiki:


Anxiety sensitivity (AS) refers to the fear of behaviors or sensations associated with the experience of anxiety. Bodily sensations related to anxiety are mistaken as a harmful experience causing more intense anxiety or fear. For example, a person may fear the shakes as impending neurological disorder.

 

My husband fears my shakes more than I do as I have given him a black eye on occasion!

 

So AS is the fear of fear, basically?

"You have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

Why is the finding that psychological symptoms may be a response to physical symptoms, notable? Of course they are!

 

At this point it's clear that this is a religion because everyone just keeps doing the same things and saying the same words as a decade ago, several decades ago and a full century ago. All using the same qualifiers of "may be" and "could be". No change. Just an endless loop of the same things with the same process and the same biases and the same conclusions. This could go and on for decades more and the same rituals and the same narratives and the same admonitions would be exact, identical, unchanged. All projecting beliefs without insight or understanding.

There are dozens of cheap studies like this one. All have the same features and the same biases. All have circular logic and pay no attention to the direction of causality. All have the same conclusions because they have the same assumptions and the process essentially exists only to give the assumptions false credibility.

That is universally true and I have no idea why such platitudes even make it into published literature. Medicine is all about disease, not illness. Medicine pays little attention to symptoms. We have no actual description for the mechanism of literally every single symptom out there. At best medicine acknowledges that some symptoms are associated with a disease but there never is an actual explanation for the process so making that point is an entirely useless and only serves to create false mystery.

Do better. Do 100x better than this because this is pathetic. Cheap and pathetic.

 

When the autonomic nervous system begins to malfunction it affects all bodily activities. It controls heart rate, respiration, digestion, perspiration, pupil dilation etc. The system reaches the brainstem and sends signals to the deepest parts of the brain. Dysfunction there can cause anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances. It's very debilitating and affects qol.

Not too many specialists in this field, unfortunately.

 

Agreed. It is pathetic to give a psychological profiling to all diseases that are poorly understood. It stigmatizes and decrease the likelihood of receiving competent care while increasing the likelihood of getting a psychiatric consultation or psychological treatments when it is not appropriate.

On top of being pathetic, i would double down and say it is despicable that so called neuroscience teams profile patients this way.

Of course there will be patients experiencing and expressing anxiety, but from professional experience, anxiety related to diagnosis exits for any disease and can range from situational and expected to excessive and pathological. However labelling patients with POTS, ME, fibromyalgia, etc as anxious, neurotic, catastrophizers and depressed does not lead to further understanding of the disease and leads to harm.

edited for clarity