Living with POTS can be a challenging journey full of uncertainty. From getting a diagnosis to finding an effective treatment plan, people with POTS face a lot of hurdles. My own experience eventually led to POTSie—an app designed to simplify the daily work of managing POTS.
The beginning
It started in the winter of 2020, when I began experiencing heart palpitations, difficulty walking, extreme nausea when standing up at night, elevated heart rate, chest pain, fatigue, and trembling hands. After a series of tests and a lot of waiting, my cardiologist diagnosed me with POTS.
Treatment challenges and lifestyle adjustments
My doctor prescribed medication and recommended lifestyle changes: the CHOP exercise protocol, 3,000 mg of salt per day, and at least 64 oz of water per day.
Despite all of that, my POTS was still hard. Medication only got symptoms to a slightly bearable state. I still couldn’t do 85% of the things I wanted to do.
I didn’t need more information. I needed something that would help me actually stay consistent with everything my doctor recommended.
Frustration with traditional management methods
My doctor said it could take up to five months to feel the benefits of the CHOP exercise protocol. I was never a gym person, but I was willing to try it.
Following the protocol quickly became tedious. Every day I’d re-download the same PDF and scroll to figure out what to do at the gym. Tracking water was even worse—I’d forget how many glasses I’d had, and existing water apps felt cluttered.
The birth of POTSie
After three months of consistent exercise, water, and salt, I started feeling better. By month five, I felt like I was returning to my old life. But my frustration with tracking everything didn’t go away.
So I built POTSie—an app to track water, sodium, and the CHOP exercise protocol all in one place.
The benefits
POTSie quickly became indispensable, especially during travel when hydration and salt slip fast. Logging in one place surfaced patterns I’d never noticed. If I skipped exercise for a while, symptoms came back with full force. My water intake dropped after 2 p.m., which explained why I always felt worse in the evening.
The biggest unlock wasn’t any single feature. It was finally being able to see all my data together.
Empowering POTS patients
For many of us, POTS is a lifelong condition, but managing it shouldn’t be frustrating. POTSie’s goal is to keep everything you need in one place and reduce the time you spend managing your POTS—so you can spend more of it on the parts of life you love.
