Question and Answer Forum

What is the relationship between POTS and CFS?

By David S. Bell, MD, FAAP

Published in Lyndonville News, July 1999

Question: I recently was diagnosed w/ orthostatic intolerance. I have been reading that some people diagnosed w/ CFS & postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) believe that the POTS was their problem all along & that CFS was a misdiagnosis. What is the relationship between the two? Does one cause the other? Thanks

Answer: Excellent question and I have taken the liberty to use it as a topic for this month's articles on circulating blood volume and the relationship between neurally mediated hypotension and CFS. The question is whether POTS and orthostatic intolerance are the same as CFS, symptoms of CFS, or separate illnesses. My personal belief is that all are connected with some shared mechanism. But this research is still in its infancy.

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