Being Diagnosed with POTS and Other Acronyms

This post picks up where “Just a long trip? No, it’s Long COVID” left off.

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In January 2022, I began experiencing a new wave of symptoms that included:

• Heart pounding out of nowhere while standing, sitting, and sometimes even while lying down
• Skyrocketing BPM when I’d go from lying/reclined to a standing position, at times I’d almost pass out
• Dizziness, especially if I bent down or forward — some days I couldn’t even look down slightly without feeling dizzy and nauseated
• Sleep wasn’t restorative at all — it didn’t matter if I slept for two hours or ten hours, I would wake up exhausted
• Couldn’t tolerate any exercise, or hot showers/hot weather. And if I did try to exercise, I would get severe flu-like symptoms the next day (sometimes lasting two days). It also seemed like it was happening after days of particularly heightened emotions, good or bad.
• Unexplained knee pain, usually the right knee
• Joint pain and stiffness that was constant
• Occasional numbness and tingling in my feet, legs, arms, and hands — sometimes my whole body would be tingling, and other times my arms would go numb and cold while typing or eating with a utensil