The people in our study either attended a specialist cardiology clinic for people with POTS or long COVID, or came via a long COVID support group on social media. So we cannot generalise our results to people managing their long COVID at home or with their general practitioner (GP).
Earlier this year, a review said about 30 per cent of people with people with “highly symptomatic” long COVID also had POTS. Most (73 per cent) met criteria for POTS and other types of dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.
Taken together, we can conclude that many, but not all, cases of long COVID can be explained by POTS – a condition we’ve known about for years and know how to manage.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU HAVE POTS?
We suspect some cases of POTS result from a hyper-vigilant immune response to an invading pathogen, such as a virus. This, or another trigger, affects the autonomic nervous system.
This part of the nervous system balances a vast array of functions including maintaining blood flow to vital organs, digestion, temperature control, sweating and even sexual function.
Even if the autonomic nervous system is marginally disturbed, it leads to the physiological equivalent of anarchy.
The simplest of daily tasks – such as washing your hair in the shower – can result in profound symptoms of dizziness, a racing heart, breathlessness, brain fog and general exhaustion.
In other research published earlier this year, we found people with POTS have a poor quality of life – poorer than people with chronic illnesses such as HIV, cancer, or cardiovascular and kidney disease.
