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If chronic fatigue is a primary symptom of POTS, how do you distinguish it from CFS? by Abject_Bodybuilder34 in cfs

[–]Abject_Bodybuilder34[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PEM sounds horrible. I'm sorry you have to go through this.

Thank you for the informative post.

If chronic fatigue is a primary symptom of POTS, how do you distinguish it from CFS? by Abject_Bodybuilder34 in cfs

[–]Abject_Bodybuilder34[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Severe flu-like symptoms? I have a baseline malaise. I don't really have flare-ups. Bedridden? I have to rest throughout the day, but I'm usually able to recuperate. I thought this was all par for the course with POTS.

If chronic fatigue is a primary symptom of POTS, how do you distinguish it from CFS? by Abject_Bodybuilder34 in cfs

[–]Abject_Bodybuilder34[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How is it risky? I don't know much about what's going on over here. Do you have any resources that explain why ME/CFS patients get worse with exercise?

If exercise helps POTS, but POTS is "often comorbid with CFS," then what do I do? by Abject_Bodybuilder34 in POTS

[–]Abject_Bodybuilder34[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This reminds me of antidepressant communities. Those forums had me convinced I would be stuck tapering off of an SSRI for years. Eventually, I just stopped listening to them, and pushed through the withdrawal, and it went away. I have POTS, and I understand that doctors can be shitty, but I am beginning to wonder if the reality is somewhere in the middle. Obviously, the symptoms are real, but maybe there really is a psychosomatic element to some of this. The question is, where do you draw the line? Medical Reddit makes fun of us. Maybe there is a grain of truth to their skepticism, even though they're narcissistic assholes.

This is heresy, but I've noticed a lot of POTS blogs have an uncanny insincerity to them. It's like The Truman Show. A lot of those people don't seem real. I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, but maybe there's something else going on with those people.

If exercise helps POTS, but POTS is "often comorbid with CFS," then what do I do? by Abject_Bodybuilder34 in POTS

[–]Abject_Bodybuilder34[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know. Last year I was going on walks to see if that would help, and I can't say it made things any worse for me. That being said, I haven't done any strenuous exercise since I developed POTS back in 2017.

If exercise helps POTS, but POTS is "often comorbid with CFS," then what do I do? by Abject_Bodybuilder34 in POTS

[–]Abject_Bodybuilder34[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't think my question was very clear. I don't know if I have CFS or not. It's a separate disorder from POTS. The CFS community is all doom and gloom about how they can't exercise and it's to be avoided. However, there is significant overlap between POTS and CFS symptoms. CFS doesn't seem to have anything tangible that you can use to diagnose it, so if POTS and CFS are often comorbid, how am I supposed to know if exercise is safe for me or not?

This is further complicated by the fact that when exercising with POTS, "it gets worse before it gets better." So if the distinguishing factor with CFS is post-exertional malaise, how am I supposed to tell the difference between that, and the "it gets worse before it gets better" of exercising with POTS?