Treatment suggestions for Orthostatic Intolerance (POTS or NMH)

Same here! Cipro was the trigger for my ME and dysautonomia. That poison has destroyed my life.

 

Ugh, I"m so sorry, @Thinktank. Last year I had a doctor Rx it while she was looking at my list of adverse reactions.
I feel fortunate that I understand "ciproflaxin" and refused it at the pharmacy. Imagine people that don't know and just take it bc
the doctor phoned in an Rx. It's shameful.

 

+1
(Though I do things better after eating a small meal and when the temperature is moderate)

There are some problems with the U.S. system, but doctors very seldom make money from prescribing medication (they write a script and fax it to a pharmacy of the patient’s choice, which is usually a completely separate company). Usually not making money from prescribing tests, either (maybe possibly in a physician-owned clinic, they might make money from MRI or botox or something, but that type of clinic is super rare—and that still wouldn’t apply to blood tests, which will generally be sent to a lab someplace else).

The for-profit system mostly tends to stress the doctors (as they have to spend a lot of time getting pre-authorizations, and see too many patients, and be careful not see a lot of Medicaid patients), and limit tests and medications (particularly expensive ones, but it will also shift prescribing to whatever type of medication is covered by the patient’s insurance—unless the doctor is working for an HMO, this has nothing to do with the doctor or the doctor’s workplace, although the plan might have been selected by the patient’s workplace).

The doctors that are doing the kinds of things you say would be mostly the alternative ones (e.g. ND), who tend to sell a lot of herbs and things directly from their clinic.

But the dysautonomia docs? No. As far as I can tell, they are not making money from making one recommendation over another.

This hype over fee for service causing overtreatment is only hype. I read an overview of a study showing U.S. patients go to the doctor less, stay in the hospital fewer days, and get less or no more treatment than people in similar countries. Just each thing costs more here (but it’s the pharmaceutical companies, the pharmacy benefit managers, and the hospitals making the money in general, not so much doctors). (Not to say another way might not be as good or better, just there’s no evidence this way is causing that particular thing.)

As best as I understand it, the theory with the rapid heart rate is that it’s preventing a drop in blood pressure. (And this is what my cardiologist told me, if I recall correctly.)

As for low blood volume, that’s pretty apparent from pulse pressure, though there’s also a fancy test where they put a nuclear marker in your blood to check the volume and other things.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780323392761000172 (I can see the overview but it does seem to introduce pulse pressure)
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/16793-blood-volume-testing


As for sodium and potassium, do have a look into the “renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system.”
Interestingly enough, cAMP comes up. Also histamine.

http://www.urology-textbook.com/kidney-renin-aldosterone.html

For a definition of dysautonomia and a description of prevalence,
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/6004-dysautonomia
Basically it’s a lot like Raynauds: a description of a specific set of signs and symptoms that might be primary or secondary and have various causes, but similar ways to relieve symptoms. Actual cures would depend on cause.

I’ve heard of otherwise healthy people sent to ER for having heart rates that were high while at rest.

Sorry for the massively long post.

 

more on angiotensin, etc, which I'm getting more and more interested in:

https://www2.highlands.edu/academics/divisions/scipe/biology/faculty/harnden/2122/notes/fluelect.htm

 

I've been lucky enough to control my OI without prescriptions. I drink a lot of water and add salt to every glass. I also take potassium. Mine must be a mild case compared to some others.