as Jacksonville welcomes new jax QB nick
foles we are learning more about his
family especially his wife Tori foals
his high school sweetheart battles
postural orthostatic tachycardia
syndrome it is a condition basically
involving the nervous system Falls told
reporters yesterday every day is a
battle for his wife despite how healthy
she looks in these pictures and in this
video he wears this bracelet that reads
beep Potts it is to recognize her
struggle and bring awareness to her
condition dr. Kalina Sanders is a
neurologist at Baptist Medical Center
here to explain the warning signs and
more about this diagnosis good morning
thank you for being here - appreciate it
you know as I was watching this and
heard Nick Foles mentioned this I
immediately googled it wondering what it
is it's pretty uncommon and apparently
he gets misdiagnosed a lot why is that
it does so postural orthostatic
tachycardia syndrome is really a
description of what it says it's an over
exaggerated response of the heart rate
to position changes going from sitting
to lying to a standing position and this
is as a result of a dysregulation of the
autonomic nervous system that's a series
of nerves going from their brain to your
spinal cord and it communicates with all
your other organ systems like your blood
vessels your heart your intestines and
even your bladder and it regulates
bodily functions like your blood
pressure your heart rate it regulates
how often you breathe and even how your
temperature is regulated so then someone
who suffers from this condition as an
example who goes from sitting to
standing up could then stand up and pass
out and faint exactly so their heart
rate jumps up significantly and because
of that they don't get oxygenation to
their brain so they develop symptoms
like dizziness lightheaded they may feel
weak they could also feel palpitations
in their hearts from and also sometimes
tremulousness which is why it is
confused oftentimes with anxiety because
some of those symptoms are shared by
other conditions which makes it
difficult to diagnose so we know she was
diagnosed at the age of 23 and what's
interesting I mean she was an athlete so
she played volleyball in college that's
where
she met her husband who was the QB of
this of the team at Arizona State I mean
he wore the number four for a couple of
years when he was playing in the NFL
because she was considered the fourth
best volleyball player this is a woman
who's in good shape and at 23 to be
diagnosed with something like this well
I mean is there treatment forward is it
treated with medication so unfortunately
there's no cure for pots however there
are things that you can do to mitigate
some of the symptoms sometimes we might
recommend a high-salt diet definitely
adequate fluid intake maybe we can train
the person on actually how to make those
position changes so that they're less
effective the interesting thing about it
is it comes cyclical it really so it's
not every day it's not every day so
there are days where the symptoms are
much more severe and it prohibits a
person from getting out of the bed even
and then they can have days where there
can actually function and look beautiful
like she does yeah it's interesting
because she said there were days she
couldn't get out of bed and here her
husband was at the top of his career and
she couldn't be there to help him and to
support him that said is there something
that actually triggers this that causes
it or was this something perhaps that
she was born with that didn't manifest
into any symptoms until she was 23 we
don't have a clear understanding of why
this dysregulation of the autonomic
nervous system happens Potts is only one
diagnosis that is a impactive from the
autonomic nervous system we have not
identified a trigger for it though and
is it mostly impact women or do men have
it as well so women are five times more
likely to have pots than men and it's
oftentimes the young female so the
average age is around 30 but the range
can go from 15 to up to 51 to 3 million
people in the United States have this
condition interesting well now with this
awareness - if anybody is suffering
those symptoms at home you know young
women may be this is the cause since it
is frequently made diagnosed I have that
conversation with your doctor doctor
thank you for being here to hear it