Natural Ways to Treat POTS

What are some natural ways to treat pots, which they kind of dysautonomy. So the first thing is, what is pots? What is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome? Basically, it's like a vasovagal lighthead dizziness thing. You stand up quickly, you can pass out. The issue with POTS is you can have the exact same symptoms sitting down, laying down. And it's associated with a lot of other things, like brain fog, not getting enough blood flow to your brain, anxiety, jitterness, shakiness, night terrors, sleep disturbances, as well as pain in your body, aches and pains, joint issues, a whole host of things associated with it, in addition to mind issues and body issues, on top of the fact that you can't really do a lot because you're tired and your blood part, you can't maintain your blood pressure. So what are some natural ways to treat POTS or dysautonomia? Actually, one of the interesting things is when you have these issues, one of the things your body does is try to maintain your volume. It holds on to salt or sodium. So one of the primary treatments for this naturally is just to increase the salt anywhere from three to five, up to nine grams of salt a day, which is roughly one to two teaspoons of salt a day. And that by itself can help increase your volume in your blood vessels. But the issues with that, however, is when your body's attempt to hold on to salt, you actually potassium and magnesium waste. So many people with POTs don't realize they're also magnesium deficient, potassium deficient. And you need lots of different metals, potassium, magnesium, sodium, trace minerals in order to keep fluid, as well as other minerals in your body. If you don't have the right balance, you'll continue to sodium waste. So not in addition to getting adequate sodium or taking a little more, you really should focus on potassium. Probably anywhere from one to four extra grams a day in your diet, as well as magnesium, up to 800 to 1200 milligrams a day extra to help maintain these electrolytes. So so many of my patients with dysautonomia pots, just by getting enough electrolytes, feel tons better. But you have to get electrolytes with fluids. Otherwise, you know, water and salts go together. Okay, that's the basic gist. So you have to get them in your system to go together. So typically you want to consume half your body weight in ounces of water. I usually Recommend My dysonomic POTS patients consume about at least 3ish, 2 or 3 liters of water a day with electrolytes and minerals and things like that. So that's like the cornerstone of natural treatments. For pots of dysautonomia, the next level is compression. Because with a lot of individuals with pots, which is a form of dysautonomia, they actually get pulling the blood. Blood pools around your legs, your thighs, but it pulls. About 60% of it pulls in your, around your internal organs, around the female organs, lower pelvic area. So when you get compression like a binder or those athletic wear, that leg pression and they have their sports shots, the shops that come up to your ribs, those can be super helpful, is that compression actually improves blood flow from your venous system to your central nervous system, ultimately to your heart and ultimately the rest of your body. So that by itself can have a big impact on blood pressure. So electrolytes, not just sodium, but magnesium and potassium. Compression and certain types of exercise are really super important. One of the best exercises for individuals who have a hard time staying vertical is actually working on a recumbent bike. The pumping action of a recumbent bike, actually flexing your thighs, your legs kind of retrains not only the muscles and veins in your legs, but also your nervous system to realize, hey, your legs can pump and push this fluid back to your central nervous system. One of the big things people don't realize is that your heart pumps blood through your arteries. So you don't need to exercise to do things for heart to go out through your body. But the way it comes back through your lymphatics as well as through your venous system requires physical activity. Movement requires the muscles to contract. And this is almost like this feet forward cycle. When people get sick and feel cruddy from pots, fatigue, lack of energy, they become less mobile, they do less stuff, then their muscles get weaker, less strong, they lose muscle mass and almost as a feet forward cycle. So just doing some basic muscle building exercises in your thighs, lower legs, I mean whole body of course, and then some exercises. We actually have a resource that will probably attach here, wherever this is put. I think this will probably be in YouTube. That's our guide to some natural treatments for deciding your pots will have these in there. So exercise, compression, electrolytes, then some other things can be super helpful. In addition to those four pots and Dysonomia, one of those is lotus naltrexone. One of the issues with dysonomy and POTS is that there's an imbalance in your two parts of your immune system. Your TH1, TH2 as well as your regulatory part of your immune system.th17 and lotus naltrexone is a nice tonic Naltrexone is a nice tonic to help balance your immune system. Inflammation Associated with Dysautonomia There are multiple herbs that can be helpful as well. A lot of people with dysautonomia pots also have a thing called mast cell activation syndrome and so using things to help stabilize that part of your immune system, things like quercetin, things like resveratrol can be super helpful. Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, different chemicals like that can be really helpful with muscle stabilization. If you have a sleep disturbance and you have a problem sleeping, using H1 and H2 blockers like Claritin, Zyrtec, Allegra, Pepcid can help with sleep, wake cycle issues, Singulair, Xylutin these are prescriptions less natural, but it's interesting how a lot of these medications have natural corollaries. Nettles is one of the things that I use. A lot of patients who have respiratory tract issues, allergic issues. Personally I use it as well as a lot and you can make herbal teas out of that. So again the handout that'll be attached with this you can get that. We'll have a whole bunch of other natural treatments for POTS and cyanomia, but understanding some of the basic premises underneath it will help you better with your condition to know what to do to help you feel much, much better. If you have any additional questions, please put them below. We'll answer them as we're able and either in this place or in our podcast as well. If this information is helpful, please share it with your friends. That's how we get information like this out there. Take care and we'll talk to you soon.