AFTER AMBER LOPEZ gave birth to her second daughter, Sadie, at right, she suffered the worst of her POTS symptoms to date. An orthostatic intolerance disorder, POTS makes sitting upright or standing a trigger for lightheadedness and acute fatigue, so she says she cared for her toddler and newborn without getting up off the floor. “POTS is one of those diseases where it will come and go like a roller coaster, and child birth can [aggravate] it. In my case, it blew me out of the water.”

Amber Lopez of West Melbourne lived without a diagnosis of her condition, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), for about 14 years, suffering both the symptoms and the uncertainty.

POTS is one of a group of autonomic dysfunctions characterized by lightheadedness and fatigue when a person is standing. The average POTS sufferer lives without a diagnosis for about 6 years, according to studies.

Severe illnesses like COVID-19 and physical traumas can sometimes trigger POTS in previously asymptomatic or undiagnosed individuals. After the birth of her second daughter – labor and birth can be considered a physical trauma – Lopez’s POTS symptoms went into overdrive. She says she was mothering an infant and a 1-year-old from the floor – her symptoms were too great to stand.

In 2013, Lopez became a patient of Health First Cardiologist Enrique Polanco’s. Among other tests, Dr. Polanco did a Tilt Table Test that evaluates orthostatic intolerance.

By 2015, she was put on Corlanor, “and it gave me my life back.”

Today, Lopez is one of more than 100 POTS patients Dr. Polanco sees. He says the difficulty is “the presentation can be very diverse,” and though widely known now, “most physicians don’t know the symptomatology, and young women are the most common [patients], and doctors may blame the symptoms on their anxiety.”

READ the full feature, including the mention of a study that found 30% of long-haul COVID-19 sufferers met the criteria for POTS, in Florida Today HERE.