Aaron Hartman, MD presents a YouTube talk raising awareness about POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), a commonly overlooked dysautonomia that can mimic chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, anxiety, insomnia, ADHD, palpitations and other conditions. He describes POTS as an imbalance involving blood-pressure regulation, the nervous and immune systems leading to poor brain/organ perfusion (dizziness, lightheadedness, tremor-like episodes, fatigue, panic-like events). Hartman outlines three main subtypes—autoimmune, neuropathic, and adrenergic—notes common comorbidities and triggers (autoimmune disease, hypermobility, MCAS, GI dysbiosis, sleep apnea, infections, mold, trauma), estimates roughly 3 million Americans (~1% prevalence) are affected, and states about 20% of POTS cases are autoimmune. He emphasizes that POTS is frequently missed, that simple management (fluids, electrolytes, compression, exercise) and targeted therapies (treating gut issues, addressing triggers, acupuncture, craniocervical therapies) can help, and signals further blog posts and videos forthcoming.
Questions this video answers
About 3 million (roughly 1% of the U.S. population).
May 15, 2023.
About 20% of patients with POTS.
Chapters
What mystery illness is on the rise and kind of sort of everywhere? About 3 million people currently in the United States have this. What unknown or commonly overlooked illness is seen by physicians and practitioners around the country on almost a daily basis? It's not being diagnosed. This thing looks like a lot of different illnesses. This mystery illness can look like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. It. It can also look like palpitations, fast heart rate, anxiety. It can look like insomnia in kids. It can look like ADHD as well as add. So this can look like a lot of things and it's really, really common. So what am I talking about? What is this mystery illness that's commonly overlooked kind of sort of everywhere? There are things we can do about it, but yet no one's talking about it. What I'm talking about is POTS P O T S, which is a kind of dysautonomia now. So some of you all may be wondering, why am I talking about this? Why am I talking about on social and why am I doing this live right now? What's interesting, my. My wife and I actually were on a trip, one of our first vacations actually last week. We've had alone for quite some time and we ran to people who have kids with pots of dysautonomia. This is literally everywhere. Even on vacation. I'm running to people who have this thing. So I want to talk about, take some more, a more generalized discussion about more than just what we're doing in social on the blogs right now to let people really realize this one even either if everybody knows someone who's dealing with this, and that is pretty crazy to think about it. So positive dysautonomia, what it is, is basically an imbalance in your body's blood pressure system, neurological system and immune system. And the result is you don't get enough blood pressure to your organ or body parts to your brain. So it can look like dizziness, lightheadedness, even pseudo seizures. It can look like these weird kind of shaking, tremor kind of things. It can be just chronic fatigue. All my patients who have anxiety, OCD kind of stuff will have these anxiety or panic episodes and they don't realize it's not actually a stressor. It's their body's this pot kind of thing. A lot of times it can actually look like other things and be associated with autoimmune issues. Some of our older patients actually have labile or uncontrolled fluctuating blood pressure numbers. So this can look like a lot of different things. There's three major kinds of pots. The first one is actually autoimmune POTS or dysautonomia. And the interesting thing about the autoimmune type is it usually comes along with other things. One of the reasons I think that POTS is commonly overlooked in our current healthcare system is it doesn't really come by itself. It's just like a grouping of symptoms like the ones I mentioned before. And there's usually a trigger and something else going on. So unless you see an expert, whatever that kind of word means, who deals with this, it's going to be missed commonly. But the first one is autoimmune. So if I see patients with Hashimoto's rheumatoid arthritis, any autoimmune gut issues, I always kind of look for do they have this POTS kind of thing. The other kind of POTS is actually a neuropathic POTS and people have weird tingling feet, things you tend to see in patients with mold illness, Lyme and other kind of neurological things. And the other one is the adrenergic pots. This is the POTS that occurs in your adrenaline patients, your adrenal fatigue patients. Sometimes these people are so tired and so fatigued that they just don't have the energy to get up throughout the day. It's hard to pull themselves out of bed. They have to get their coffee and things to get their energy going. And as you can see, this is actually a lot of people. This sounds like a lot of patients I see on a daily basis. Again, 3 million Americans, you know, 1% of the population roughly, are dealing with this. Yet most primary care doctors, most functional practitioners and functional doctors aren't really looking for this. They're not really dressing and treating it yet. There's so many things that can be done for this. So one of the things I want to do is talk about this a little more, discuss that. We've done a lot of blogs on it that are actually being put out right now. But the reality is a lot of people know someone with POTS or dysautonomia and it's just being missed. And when I hear these cases of people who just overlooked by the system, who've been neglected, and this and the basic therapies are so simple to actually help patients with it. So that's one of the reasons I'm talking about doing a live. It's a also one of the reasons why I'm doing some of the blogs. This is something that's commonly overlooked, that's commonly missed, yet it's common. It's kind of sort of everywhere. So there's a lot of illnesses that fall into this category. So I want to talk about five major ones right now, real briefly that that you should look for if someone has pots. The first thing is hypermobility. One of the things that I see often with a lot of these kind of mystery illnesses, people are double joint or hypermobile, which by itself is not a bad thing, it's actually a good thing. But if in the wrong situation, the wrong environment, mold, trauma, head injuries, poor nutrition illnesses, a bunch of things, all of a sudden the hypermobility can trigger this abnormal regulation in the neurologic blood pressure and immune system, which can look like POTS or a bunch of other things. The other thing I look for is this thing called muscle activation syndrome, which again sounds kind of weird, MCAs, but yet in Germany about 19% of the population has this. So this is another kind of mystery illness and that looks very much like pots, very much like other autoimmune issues, and again is commonly overlooked. Also look for people with gastrointestinal GI tract issues. Ibs, gas bloating, sibo, sifo, dysbiosis, chronic constipation bloating, food allergies, food reactions, can't tolerate stuff. Interesting how much of our immune system, 90% is actually around our GI tract. So if you have any kind of immune neurological issues, you always, always have to consider the GI tract. So I've already mentioned hypermobility. And the other thing is autoimmune illnesses is one of these five big, big things you always want to look for if you have any of these other things, especially the POTS. And again, about probably about 20% of patients with POTS will have the autoimmune version of it, which is the Mayo Clinic. They order labs for it, but you know, the typical doctor doesn't because it' rare and uncommon, yet it's kind of sort of everywhere. So briefly, what I'll be doing is talking about this a little more in the next couple weeks. If this interests you, please like make some comments below. Let us know if you're interested in learning more about this. But I've done a bunch of blogs on it that are on our website. I want to talk about it more and the main reasons I just hear so many people say they've seen doctors, nothing helped them, they finally got that diagnosis and basic things like fluid, electrolytes, compression, certain exercises that can help a lot of people. But there's also other alternative treatments, acupuncture, craniocervical, therapies, find the trigger for the pots, find the other underlying autoimmune issue with the pots, treating the gut issues with the pots. All these. All of a sudden you have someone's hypermobile looking for sleep apnea, which is super, super common. All of a sudden. Now there's ways to address this that can actually help people and put this in remission. And again, I see it routinely in my clinic. So I'm sharing this more over the next couple of weeks. If you want to learn more about it, you know, you can look at some of the blogs we've been putting up on our website, but share this information with friends if anybody knows anybody who has POTS of Dysautonomia, because this, again, is super common. It's kind of sort of everywhere. And we'll be talking about this more a little bit. This is something that interests you or you have family or friends that actually have this. Please share this with them. Give us some comments actually as well on this when it gets posted after I finish the lab. So. But hopefully this information is helpful and we'll be talking more about it now in the coming weeks. If anybody has any questions about, I can answer them real quickly because we actually have had a bunch of people pop in. Otherwise, we'll keep on doing some of these labs and help educate people to take. Take action in their health, to educate people, encourage them and empower them to actually be more engaged in their health. So take care. Bye. We'll talk to you soon.
