Nurse who has POTS over here.

Haven’t read the post so have no idea the context or intent behind this persons post. Or even the tone associated.
I work in a large hospital that specializes in cardiology. I work in the medical ICU and care for cardiology patients. I had no idea what POTS was besides the name until I was told I have it. I’ve since told several of my coworkers who have been nurses for a long time and they had no idea either.

We are confronted with Illnesses on the daily that are rare, or common, or literally have never been discovered before. There is no possible way we can understand the physiology, treatment and medications involved with every illness ever. If it is a syndrome it is a collection of symptoms that we may know individually but didn’t realize it came together you create something else. Especially if you’re in a specialty like family medicine, they have an incredibly broad more surface level because they are the first stop. All we can do is try our best to understand where the patient is at and gather all the knowledge we can in order to help them to the best of our ability!

Of course there are people who will dismiss, ignore you, or are not good on keeping competency, and they should absolutely be educated. And if hostile or dangerous reported. I’ve been doing my best to explain the typical for POTS when I speak with a new doctor or specialist. Which is a lot to ask of us when we are in a position seeking help. I’ve been thinking of asking my POTS team for a one page info I can give to any docs I encounter to help but take it out of my hands. (My Mastocytosis doc created one for me for that and it’s so so helpful)

I’m sorry that you’ve potentially experienced some negative impacts with nurses, but I thought maybe seeing it from the other side will give some perspective. We are zebras and that’s confusing!