Competitive Swimmer Fighting POTS

I have been fighting POTS for 2 1/2 years now starting January 2022. I was a competitive swimmer ranked nationally. The earliest sign I recognized was fainting during a race (in January) but I just thought I was working hard until about a month later when I got a period. This wasn’t anything new for me because I have had it for 2 years at this point but this one was so incredibly painful and led to 4 months of bleeding unable to be stopped by any medications. Finally when we got a birth control that worked I was fainting and craving salt constantly. Everyone said it was iron deficiency or blood loss (which it definitely was) but it was way more than that. We got all the numbers up and I was still struggling.

After much researching we thought it may be POTS. We went to many doctors that told me “its just anxiety” “its in your head.” It took me 6 months to get diagnosed and when I did get diagnosed it was a little too late to just get medications and be fine. I had to quit swim for a few months to let my body recover with these medications.

After those months, I finally got back into swim with the right medications and taking salt pills throughout practices and meets. I came back in October of 2022 and stayed in until June of 2023 when I made state and got ranked nationally. When I went to state, the fainting came back and I could barely finish the meet. I realized my resting heart rate (not working out at all) was 180. I had to quit. At this point, I was taking 10-15 salt pills a day (250 mg) and if I took any less I struggled even more than I already did. I suffered from the periods still, chronic migraines, developed mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and of course the POTS.

No one seemed to know how to get under control. They put me on medications to lower my heart rate but nothing was working, or if it did it had insane side effects. I got into neurological physical therapy in October of 2023 to retrain my heart because of it jumping from 50 to 180 whenever I’d move. I went from a resting of 180-200 and fainting 3-4 times a day. To a normal resting and barely fainting within 8 months. In those 8 months I was struggling to keep going because how did I go from competing other athletes to competing the ability to just simply stand up. I am now slowly working my way back into swim and I’m now able to go to school. We found out I have mold allergy and Lyme disease and I am currently on a detoxing plan. While everything is getting better, I still have my POTS managed with proper medications and even though I’m better I do still have bad days. There are some days I'm back in the pool swimming and there is some days I can’t get out of bed and that is completely okay. I know I won’t have my old body back but I also know I am way better than I was and I am completely blessed to have what I have.