Monday, March 28, 2011

Getting Through the Heat Intolerance

Heat intolerance can make summer miserable.
As it starts to warm up I have been becoming increasingly concerned with how I will make it through yet another spring and summer.  We do not have central air conditioning in our house, so it can be quite unbearable at times.  Where I live it is not uncommon to see 90 degree days with very high humidity, so fans just do not cut it.  We put in window air conditioners, but they only do so much.  It is not quite like having an entire house with air conditioning.

With severe heat intolerance, I am constantly in the beginning stages of heat exhaustion.  With POTS this is just something you have to deal with I guess.  Not many people have been successful in treating their heat intolerance.  I am hoping chelation will help me, but I do not expect to see any results for at least 6 months to a year.  If I were doing IV's then I would likely see improvements much quicker, but for now I am sticking with oral DMPS.  I am still a little nervous about IVs and I don't know of any doctor who does them in this area. 

The beginning symptoms of heat intolerance are all too common for the POTS patient.  Here's a list of symptoms from the website medicinenet.com.  It is linked above if you want to read more:
* heavy sweating (not the case for a lot of POTsy-we do not sweat enough)
* paleness
* muscle cramps
* tiredness
* weakness
* dizziness
* headache
* nausea or vomiting
* fainting

The skin may be cool and moist. The victim's pulse rate will be fast and weak, and breathing will be fast and shallow.
At some time or another I've had all of these symptoms while bathing or simply sitting in my house doing nothing.  I do not sweat enough when I am hot.  I think that might be part of the issue.  However  I do sweat profusely if I am having a norepinephrine response to stress of some type or become extremely tachycardic upon standing.  Apparently these are controlled by two different parts of the CNS, so that actually make sense.  

I guess walking around in my bikini, keeping cold wash clothes on my head and getting cold baths is really all I can do.  The summer time is hell for me and I can not looking forward to it at all.

For those of you who got to the end of this article and think all of my symptoms sound "adrenal", think again.  I am so sick and tired of hearing about how I need adrenal support.  I am on adrenal "support" and it does nothing for POTS, nor heat intolerance, nor exercise intolerance, not the lightheadedness etc.  Sorry but I am just sick and tired of hearing this.  STTM and the adrenal yahoo group have both polluted all health forums, so everyone considers themselves experts on adrenals.  No you are not! Wake up, there are other body systems out there other than adrenals and hydrocortisone is not something you should be messing with unless you have real adrenal failure.  Period.

I made the mistake and listened to all of these armchair forum doctors for years.  No more!  /Rant off

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Dana, I just found your blog ~ After reading some of your entries and looking at the photos, I can say with 100% certainty that you have lyme disease or bartonella ( and highly likely, BOTH ) ...

Testing is very suspect, and finding a knowledgable doc is difficult ...

Lyme works hand in hand with mercury ~ please look into this, it will change your life for the better !!!

Dana said...

I have looked into the possibility of lyme. I thought I wrote a big post about it, but apparently I'm going crazy because I don't see it. It may have been within a member log on a forum I used to post to, so I'm going to copy it and repost here.

Yes I probably have lyme, but it's way more complicated than that in my case and I don't think mine was from an actual tick bite. You'll understand once I post about it. However here's my main reason for not "dealing" with it.

I feel these Lyme doctors just say everyone has it, regardless of what the testing says. They just assume you do if you have any symptoms, so part of me finds that a little unnerving. What's the point of even testing if you say everyone has it regardless?

Also there does seem to be a connection between Lyme and mercury, but that little tick didn't give you mercury poisoning. Perhaps lyme disease is just a malfunction of the immune system due to the mercury poisoning? Maybe once the mercury is cleared out, the body can kill off the lyme by itself. This is just a theory as I see a lot of people with Lyme disease can never seem to shake it no matter how many antibiotics they try.

If I ever go this route, I have one of the best lyme docs out there about an hour from me. Funny because I had an appointment with him, but canceled it at the last minute.

Dana said...

Ok it's going to take a lot of researching and fact checking for this lyme post, so it may be a few days. The post I thought I created isn't as simple as cut and paste. However I will be posting about this very soon. Mine is directly related to the lyme vaccine back in 1999.

Interestingly I got sick in 2000.