Investigating Mercury Toxicity As Possible Underlying Cause for POTS

This is an area that few POTSies have investigated and I am going to be one of the first to give it a good run for its money. Searching Dinet's forums for the word "amalgam", there are only 9 posts from its entire history. That in itself is unbelievable to me and those who do ask about it are met with great opposition. I do not really understand why.

One of the posts is a poll I made and interestingly enough 88% of those who responded said they had or have amalgams in their mouth. That seems significant to me. There are of course other sources of heavy metals, but the fact that, that many of us have amalgams in our mouth should at least warrant further investigation. Instead most just do not want to be bothered or they say things like "I'll do that when I start to feel better". What is heavy metals is THE reason why you are not feeling good?

I have been chelating now and I am now on Round 5 of DMPS. I take DMPS orally every 8 hours, but I am not hugely strict in the dosing. If I am a little late or early I take it just to keep from interrupting my sleep.

There have been very very slight improvements with my POTS so far and it is still very early on. I plan on chelating for at least a year to see what happens. My heat intolerances seems a teeny tiny bit better, but I have a LONG way to go.

We will see what happens. I am cautiously optimistic.

Summertime With POTS: A Hell Most Cannot Understand

Those of you who have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) know how miserable summertime can be for us. I see the increase in posts on Dinet.org already. A lot of us are really feeling the change in the seasons and it can be rather devastating emotionally. Sure physically it really stinks, but for a good number of us we feel pretty decent during the winter months. Some may think that a new treatment they started in the winter was helping, only to find out that treatment in fact has done nothing for them. This is exactly what I found out years ago when I started going down the hormone replacement path. I started on hydrocortisone and florinef for adrenal insufficiency during April and by June I knew it was doing nothing for POTS. People who repeat over and over again that POTS is simply adrenal issues, have no idea what they are talking about. I feel like smacking them upside the head because NONE of them have ever experienced full-blown, life altering POTS.

Heat Intolerance

Credit: zenner

As February comes to its end I am beginning to worry about this upcoming Spring and Summer.  There is one symptom of POTS I have not been able to address no matter what I try and that is the severe heat intolerance.  Is this a major problem for any of you?   For me the heat is my main trigger for the tachycardia, shortness of breath and at times even lightheadedness.  Although, I don't have to be standing up for these symptoms to occur if it is hot enough.   Even in the winter if a room or store is warm enough, I become symptomatic too so it is not just an issue with the outdoor temperature.   This is one of the reasons why I like to wear layers in the winter, so I can start peeling clothes off if needed, especially in retail stores.  I've become overheated while walking around a mall and it can get very scary.  One of the worst things is the changing rooms.  Why do those always seem to be so much hotter than the rest of the store?

Why I'm So Bitter

Over the years I've had a few people ask me an interesting question... Why am I so bitter? The answer to that is simple, I'm not feeling better.

After more than 10 years of bouncing around from doctor to doctor, being completely ignored or accused of using heroin or some other illegal substance, you start to become disenchanted with mainstream doctors. I've been to various different types of doctors and none of them have any solutions to my issues. When one of the "trusted" drugs or supplements fail to give you the expected improvement, then they literally throw their hands up in the air and give up.

Are the doctors I see just bad doctors? I wish I knew the answer to that, but regardless POTS patients are suffering. We suffer on a daily basis and cannot resume normal activities even while on 10 medications and following their salt and water intake suggestions as well as wearing uncomfortable compression hose and raising the head of our bed. Just typing all of that out makes me even more angry. Something is wrong here. These doctors should realize what they are doing is not working. Whatever theory you have used to trial these meds in POTS patients has not panned out and it's time to get back to the drawing board. PERIOD!

POTS doctors are only treating symptoms and in my case have no desire to figure out the underlying causes. In most cases, they are incapable of even controlling symptoms, so they are failing at all aspects of their job. There are always breakthrough symptoms in every single person I have spoken to over the years with POTS. You might see a slight improvement with standing HR numbers, but you still classify with POTS and still cannot lead a normal life. What else truly matters in life?

Once you start mixing medications, it becomes damn near impossible to know what side effects are from what drug. How do you know what is a "POTS" symptom and not a side effect from the new beta blocker you started taking or the new SSRI you have been put on?

It gets to a point where enough is enough and that is why I am bitter. I am sick of POTS doctors treating POTSy like guinea pigs. I did not sign up for this! There has to be others out there that feel the same way as me. Surely not all of you are brainwashed that we need all of these medications especially when they are NOT working?