Tag Archives: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome

The Pain of my Fibro Flares

This is the first time since starting my blog that I’ve had more than basic fibromyalgia symptoms. My fibromyalgia has been mostly under control for at least six months, but it’s kind of hard to tell with all the POTS stuff going on. Some of the symptoms between the two conditions overlap, with chronic fatigue and widespread muscle aches being the two main ones in my case. Towards the end of getting my fibro controlled, I’d been able to identify several of my triggers: injury, bad illness, exhaustion, major over exertion, severe allergy flares (if I haven’t been controlling things very well), sudden shift from warm weather to cold weather (like, from 70F to 40F, which happens in CO on a regular basis), and hurting my feet. Thankfully, many of these triggers need to be paired with others to set off a bad flare.

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Flare Week

My allergies have been so horrendous that my symptoms have been extremely flared up all week. There is a ton of pollen in the air 😥 I have been dealing with fibro pain, crazy POTS things, headaches, and my insomnia has decided to join the party too. This does not make for a happy Lizzy… ugh.

yes, that's 96 bpm and 85% oxygen... while lying down. and my wedding ring isn't on because my hand is swollen...

yes, that’s 85 bpm and 96% oxygen… while lying down. and my wedding ring isn’t on because my hand is swollen.

Have I also mentioned that my wrist has been extremely messed up since Monday evening? Not sure what happened, but if it’s still this painful tomorrow, I’m going to go to Urgent Care… otherwise I’m just going to wait until I see Joleen on Monday so she can evaluate it (so I don’t look like a druggy).

How This New Potsie Survived the Colorado Renaissance Festival

renfest titleimage

I did it! I managed to survive the Colorado Renaissance Festival this year! I wasn’t diagnosed with POTS until fairly recently, so I’m still discovering what I can and can’t do, and symptoms are still appearing. However, I have only missed one RenFest the entire time I have been in Colorado (the summer of my wedding), so I wasn’t going to miss it this year!!! How did I do it? Well, let me tell you!

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The Heat of Summer

I live in Colorado, the Denver area. People around here tend to rate how hot summers are based on how many days get over 90°F, so it doesn’t get very hot here. Before the POTS, I thought this heat was absolutely nothing. My car doesn’t have A/C (and hasn’t since before I got my license), and the apartment I lived in with Dan was my only residence in CO with A/C (the house before that had a swamp cooler, but it didn’t work too terribly well). So yeah, my house doesn’t have A/C.

I also want to replace the blinds with blackout curtains

I also want to replace the blinds with blackout curtains

My house, a townhouse, is oriented north to south (front door north, back is south). Well, the north side stays cool, well, cooler. But the south side gets HOT. We have a window in the kitchen, one in the powder room, one in the office, technically two in the master but they are connected to form one giant window, two venting skylights in the master bedroom, and a sliding glass door. Continue reading →

Weddings and POTS

I really enjoyed the wedding in California, but it ended up wreaking havoc on my symptoms, unfortunately. This was the wedding of the girl I’ve known since we were eight, and had asked to be my maid of honor, so symptoms were anything but “okay” during this wedding. They crashed the wedding, but I was completely determined to enjoy every minute, so I did. Why did my symptoms crash the wedding? The Los Angeles area gets extremely hot during the summer, especially the farther you get from the coast. As an example, my parents’ area is supposed to get to 105°F on both Thursday and Friday… and that’s the kind of heat I got used to while growing up!

Wedding Weather

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My Struggle with POTS

(To learn who I am as a person, please visit the About Me section. For summaries of my other chronic conditions, please see the “My Chronic Illnesses” series. There are three parts: one, two, three.)

So, POTS… yeah, it pretty much sucks. This one is my newest chronic invisible illness, and has been the most debilitating by far. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is a complicated beast. POTS is a type of dysautonomia, which is a malfunction of the autonomic nervous system (the part of your nervous system that controls everything involuntary, like blinking, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, etc). As you can imagine, the autonomic nervous system malfunctioning is not a good thing. Now, let’s explain the rest of this POTS thing the best that I can.

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