POTS treatment

I have an update and I need to just type this out before I get distracted by anything else. Sooo many things to do and all of them take me uber long because of so many rest breaks. One of these days I'll make it through my to-do list. Anyways, back to the blog.

Last I mentioned about the beta blocker and the crazy side effects. My doctor said hold off for two days then try again. After realizing "try again" would land shortly before my parents were taking my brother back to school and I was either going with thus far away from the hospital or staying here thus on my own with no one to get me to a hospital if needed- we decided to wait longer. That brought me to my follow up appointment with Dr. Awesome (yes that is how I refer to him now) yesterday. 

Quickest appointment ever and yet one of the most effective. Crazy what a difference a good doctor makes. I asked him about more natural options if not 'instead' of prescription then at least 'in addition to.' He was very receptive to that which I was very happy about. So without boring you with the details of our conversation, the result is as follows:

1. (the non-natural one) We are going to be trying a new medication and hold off on the beta blocker. This new med is to help with the pooling of blood in my legs and to raise my blood pressure. The hope is that in doing so my heartrate stabilizes. If that happens I will not need the beta blocker. If it doesn't or if I can't tolerate this med, it's back to trying a beta blocker.
2. Compression stockings woohoo! Hey you've got to do what you've got to do. I can jazz it up a bit by putting on my high school uniform to go with it... you know we all used to wear knee high socks with those... haha just kidding though... well maybe I will on halloween :) Anyways, I have a pair I got when I was in the hospital before and after reading about POTS I tried them. It definitely helps! I can stand for like 10 minutes instead of 5 LOL.
3. Aquatic therapy. And my swim suit just ripped. So basically he wrote me a script for a new swim suit. Sweet. Since both POTS and MG patients are exercise intolerant the hope is that getting me in the water will allow for slight exercise in a way my body can handle. I'm pretty excited about getting to use a pool all the time. 

I asked about IV fluid infusions but he didn't take on to that idea right now. There are many other options out there both pharmaceutical and some more natural. It's all trial and error. Hopefully something out there will help me and hopefully sooner rather than later. He really can't wait til I get off the warfarin/blood thinner for the PE treatment because he said there is more testing he needs to do but can't because of it. I can't wait for that either though as the 6 month mark gets closer I am getting a little nervous about it. Being that I've had PE in my history now, I have a clotting factor in my genetics, and I spend most of my days at rest because my body won't let me do more that all adds up to eeek I don't want another clot! I need to talk to my hematologist about it but I also don't want to be a lifer so... hope for the best?

Well I'm tired so I'm going to keep this post short. Thanks for reading! Prayer request: that I tolerate this new medication well and it gets me up and moving again along with aquatic therapy helping rather than harming. Thanks!