Dysautonomia Awareness Month
Hello all! This month is dysautonomia awareness month! Now this is probably where you're saying dys-auto-what? This can get really complicated so I'm going to try to put it as simply as possible. Dysautonomia is an umbrella term that refers to conditions which cause dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. I personally have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS*. There are many other conditions that are under this umbrella, but I am going to keep the focus on my personal conditions. *My POTS was caused by a genetic condition I have called ehlers-danlos syndrome, which affects your connective tissues. So now you know what the word means, but now there is the question: What is the autonomic nervous system? The autonomic nervous system refers to all the body's involuntary functions, or the functions you don't consciously control. This means things like heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, vasoconstriction/dilation, pupillary response, sweating and more...