Walking is better than standing

Why can I go for a walk but I have trouble standing to worship at church?
Why can I shop but I can't wait to make the purchase if there is a long line?
Why can I play the wii but I can't stand in one place to talk to you?

The short and simple answer: POTS.

My doctor described it in the easiest way to understand:
When I'm standing all the blood pools to my legs. When the blood pools to my legs, that means there is not enough blood to reach vital organs or other parts of my body- my brain, heart, lungs, eyes, arms, etc. When these parts don't get enough blood, or oxygen even, I get dizzy, lightheaded, brain fog, nausea, blurry/cloudy vision, weak. BP drops, heart rate sky rockets, ox sat may drop. Many POTS patients pass out.

This happens while sitting too, because the legs are still lower than the rest of the body. This is why it's hard to do much of anything normal- socialize, sit in church, drive, go to the theater, eat at a restaurant, sit at a desk, work, etc.

Much of my day, and the days of others with POTS, is spent laying down. The best position for us is laying down, or legs raised. This allows the blood flow to be distributed more evenly throughout the body and allows us to last longer. This is why I sit in my bed and am on my computer a lot.

But back to the title of my post, why is walking better than standing?
That is because when I stand, like I said, all the blood pools and sits there and I near collapsing. When I am walking that force and contraction of the muscles pushes blood flow back up so I can last longer being upright. So if I am forced to stand in one place you will often see me shifting my weight a lot or basically walking in place to help myself.

Still I face another problem, and that is MG which fights opposite against this. The more I use a muscle, the weaker that muscle gets. That means the more I walk in place, the weaker I get. The more I use my eyes and arms on my computer, laying in bed, the weaker my eyes and arms get.

It's a constant battle of myself against myself and myself against getting through life. There is a need to adapt, be patient, be creative in what I do and how I do it, and accept that sometimes I just have to stop.

Walking is better than standing, but it's still not easy and neither is anything else in life for those with chronic illness. Every struggle we've faced and can look back on means we've overcome it. We must keep walking, because after all, standing in one place gets you nowhere.