This is a POTS syndrome recovery story. 2 years after working with the POTS Treatment Center, Sara has her life back. She went from barely being able to get out of bed, to running a 5k for the first time in 10 years:
VIDEO Highlights
(starts at 5:24)
…I was still just covering up my symptoms with medications. So, I truly needed a true solution. I needed my life back for sure. Now that I had the time – not having to worry about finishing school and homework and all of that – I definitely devoted my life to fixing my body. That’s when my miracle arrived. My mom found the POTS Treatment Center in Dallas through a friend, who also has POTS. She seemed to have some really great results from it but it all seemed too good to be true. But, Dr. K and her team taught me how to train my body to work efficiently and how it truly should be working. They taught me how to breathe, just to lower my heart rate and slow down my overactive brain. They gave me tools which I can apply to treat my symptoms. They helped me create a routine too, to utilize my energy throughout the day so that I would be able to do more and more each and every day. They even taught me how to exercise, starting off very slowly and working a little more and more each day. After my first 2 weeks at the POTS Treatment Center, I was feeling about 75-85% better. I was getting there and that provided me with some hope to keep pushing forward. The troubled part was that I really, truly had to learn how to take things slowly because I wanted to keep pushing and pushing forward but a little too quickly. I didn’t want all my work to be wasted so I did keep at the routine. After the follow up week at the treatment center, I felt almost back to normal. I was able to do so much more and I was feeling like I had energy when I woke up every morning, for once. Gosh, after 10 years and waking up in the morning having energy, it still astonishes me. I ended up weaning off of my medications because my body didn’t need them anymore. My body was functioning so well that the medications were actually holding me back. At that point it truly clicked – I had finally gained control back over my body. How amazing!
…What I can do now, after 10 years of the chaos, just seems unbelievable. Now I can go shopping, have get-togethers with friends, drive my own car, hold a full-time job even, go on vacations, go dancing for hours on end even after a full day of work, help my mom in the garden, and clean the house just in an afternoon. I even found the love of my life, and we truly do enjoy every simply, silly thing and it’s wonderful. It truly is. Now I can really do anything that I want to do. Dr. K and the team down at the POTS Treatment Center helped me get to this stage now. I don’t have to think twice about doing any activity at all. I don’t have to take any medications anymore. I don’t even have to worry about becoming too tired or feeling pain – it is all gone. My body is fixed. I am healed. After 10 years of the chaos and confusion and worrying, I am free. I am 100%. I feel just like a normal kid. I am 23, going on 24, living life, having a full-time job. I’ve had a full-time job now for over a year, and I am starting my new journey of living life. After 10 years, I can finally say look out world, here I come!
The only impossible thing now is trying to find the words to thank my family, and the POTS Treatment Center family too. They are the ones who got me through this so I can start my new journey. Going from being a girl who can barely get out of bed to a girl who doesn’t have anything in her way is just beyond words. I have my life back, and all I can truly say is “thank you”.
Click on the image below to see Sara’s Facebook post about running a 5k for the first time in 10 years: