Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome

[bythestream]

Hi has anyone heard of or had any experience with this condition?

I was googling today after having strange pressure in my chest whenever having braxton hicks while lying down.

Turns out a lot of other unexplained symptoms I've had in pregnancy are explained by this syndrome. I also had some of the symptoms as a teenager and apparently these are 2 times when it is likely to manifest. Mostly my symptoms are racing heartbeat, dizzy spells when bending or standing in the one spot, and extreme tiredness in pregnancy.

It would be great to hear if anyone else had experience with this.

[atomic sagebrush]

I have tachychardia which got worse at parts of my pregnancy but mine is "supraventricular tachycardia". Mine does get aggravated when I bend at the waist and I rem. distinctly when I was pg, it would freak me out laying on my left side because my heart would just pound that way. I did better laying on my right side.

Mine started when I hit puberty too and seems to be somewhat related to stress, caffeine, too much sugar, and hormones

You should def. run it past your doctor (of course) but I found it kinda peaked about midpregnancy and then got better until about 2 months after I had the baby, then hormones made it bad again for awhile till it worked itself out.

potassium and good fats help mine a lot.

[bythestream]

Thanks Atomic. The weird chest pressure with the braxton hicks freaked me out a bit but it seems to be only when I'm lying down. I'm going to try to increase my water intake and maybe salt a little and see if that helps too. Usually the really bad Tachycardia episodes happen early in pregnancy and I can stop them by coughing or drinking iced water.

I've just figured out my younger sister probably had it to, she has been suffering headaches/nausea/dizziness/intestinal problems for a couple of years. The latest dr tried to tell her she thought it was just depression but I think this syndrome describes it better. Apparently it's not very well known in the medical profession though.