Hello, my name is Eve, and I'm new to this forum. A little background on me: I'm 22 years old, was diagnosed with POTs when I was 20, and treated at the Mayo Clinic in MN. Before that I was undiagnosed and verrrry sick for a long time. By the time I got to Mayo (I live in Maine, and was first hospitalized in Boston) I was 83 lbs and in a wheelchair. I could barely keep anything down.
Today, I am happy, I feel healthy the majority if the time, but I definitely still have POTs. I am on Celexa for my pots, I was on midodrine, but have been able to get off of it. To keep my symptoms at bay, I do cardio 5x a week with a target heart rate of 140, and strengthening 3x a week. I also eat larrrrge amounts of salt, and drink about/over a gallon of fluids a day. I make sure I get 8 hours of sleep, have a schedule, and do deep breathing when needed. When I do all these things like I should, I stay very high functioning and can do just about anything.
Here's where the pregnancy part comes in... My husband and I were just married in December (7 months ago) we are not wanting to have a child right now, but maybe in the next year or so. I have just about no info on pots and pregnancy, and since I got treated all the way in MN and I live in Maine, I don't really trust too many drs around here with my POTs. Much less POTs and pregnancy info. I'm not in contact with any drs at mayo still, either. Mayo is where I would want to get this information. I guess I'm just terrified about going back to the way I was when I was sick- starving, throwing up, out of breath all the time, scared. My husband and I really do want children at some point, though. Asking people for their pots and pregnancy stories?
Also some specific questions for those who have gone through this:
1- did your OB let you eat a lot of salt? Can that harm the baby? I do not have any issues with high BP. Salt is good for me.
2-Could you keep up your excersize? Do you think I could keep up my 5 day a week 140 heart rate cardio? Or is that bad for baby?
3- what if they put me on bed rest? What are the chances of that? I don't see why I would have to be because of my pots, but if something else happened, and I had to be put on bed rest, I just feel like that would be really bad. I'm pretty sure if I stopped cardio all together, I would feel verrrrry sick.
4- what are the PROS/CONS of c section vs natural birth?
5- after you had your baby, did it like, kill you to have to wake up so much during the night? If I don't get a good nights sleep for a few nights, I do feel sick.
6- Can you take Celexa while pregnant?
7- I truly want to have a child in the not too distant future, I just don't want to loose myself along the way.