Episode 148: POTS

What if the mysterious symptoms of POTS, long COVID, and even autism weren’t invisible at all, but deeply connected through the autonomic nervous system? In this episode, Autumn Carter sits down with Dr. Diana Driscoll, OD FAAO—optometrist, researcher, inventor, and founder of POTS Care and TJ Nutrition—to uncover how her personal battle with POTS led to five patents and groundbreaking insights into the vagus nerve, inflammation, and “invisible” illness.

Dr. Driscoll shares her powerful story of being disabled for over a decade, watching her children become ill, and ultimately refusing to accept the dismissive labels that traditional medicine offered. She explains the science behind autonomic dysfunction, how inflammation and oxidative stress alter brain chemistry, and why conditions like IBS, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome may actually be different expressions of the same underlying issues. Together, Autumn and Dr. Driscoll dive into practical steps for hope and recovery, from innovative supplements like ParaSym Plus and NAC Max to the importance of self-advocacy when doctors miss the full picture.

If you’ve ever struggled with a so-called “invisible illness” or cared for someone who has, this episode is filled with validation, compassion, and cutting-edge science that points toward real healing.

Learn more about Dr. Driscoll’s work at VagusNerveSupport.com, POTSCare.com, and DrDianaDriscoll.com. You can also connect with her communities on Facebook @POTSCare, @TJNutrition, and @diana.driscoll.777, and join her group POTS Rebels on Patreon.

For more wellness tips and exclusive content, join my newsletter! Sign up now at https://wellness-in-every-season.kit.com/5-days-to-mastering-mornings-and-evenings receive a free 5-day guide called "Awaken and Unwind: 5 Days to Mastering Life's Mornings and Evenings."

Transcript

Episode 148: POTS

[00:00:00] Autumn Carter: This is episode 1 48. We're gonna be talking about pots vagus nerve, a little bit about autism and post COVID symptoms. And this all started with Dana having some of these herself, and now she, as you can see from her background, she has been helping out other people in this realm.

[00:00:25] Welcome to Wellness In Every Season, the podcast where we explore the rich tapestry of wellness in all of its forms. I'm your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach, turn wellness coach, as well as a certified parenting coach dedicated to empowering others to rediscover their identity in their current season of life.

[00:00:44] My goal is to help you thrive, both as an individual and as a parent.

[00:00:48] I am so excited for you to be on, tell us, start off with who you are and your background so people start listening up.

[00:00:58]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes, absolutely. And first, thank you for [00:01:00] having me, Autumn . It's, really an honor to be here and I really appreciate the work you do to try to spread word just to people about things they may not stumble across. Hugely helpful.

[00:01:12] We're on a mission here at pods Care to change not only pods, but invisible illness overall, and look forward to doing that. But I, am an optometrist by trade. I had no plans of getting into research or the autonomic nervous system or what have you. I was thrown into it because I got sick. I was triggered to get sick by a virus.

[00:01:36] It was on a mission trip to Costa Rica. We all got the same virus. I can't blame the virus. Everybody else recovered. But it threw me within weeks into these bizarre symptoms. I couldn't control my heart rate, blood pressure, I was shaking. My digestion started to change. I couldn't think, I couldn't sleep.

[00:01:56] It felt like I was flooded with adrenaline. [00:02:00] And then it just continued to morph over time and horrifyingly. No one could help us. No one could figure it out. I was in clinical trials for years with a research institution and they had no clues, and then my kids got sick and my son was completely disabled.

[00:02:20] I was completely disabled and I couldn't understand Ottawa. No one was jumping up and down trying to say this is an emergency. Why would otherwise healthy people like this become disabled so quickly? So I said to work on it, and now fortunately, there is a good ending. I own POTS Care where we help people with pots.

[00:02:44] I have a. Research company called Genetic Disease Investigators and now have five patents, which was very validating as, a researcher and as a patient. And have a supplement company where I house some of the patented [00:03:00] supplements and life is great again. So there's always reasons for these conditions and we're here to peel those back.

[00:03:09] What is going on with patients suffering? 

[00:03:11] Autumn Carter: Wow. And I have yet to even mention the word autism on my podcast. Yes. I am about to sign a client who is autistic and I realize I need a deep dive into this. Took some courses. And through realizing that, I'm realizing my one child who has just been a puzzle.

[00:03:30] He probably has autism and I'm reaching out to his elementary school asking him to be tested. And I'm also wondering why. Other people had missed it. Who, this is their career that we've taken 'em to, and you were saying that POTS correlates with autism and I was learning that in my course too.

[00:03:51] Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, let's start there. 

[00:03:53]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes. And please guide me if I get too off track. There's so much to talk about, there [00:04:00] is some commonalities among patients who ultimately develop pods and pods. Just to back up a little bit, stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, meaning when patients become vertical, their heart rate increases and.

[00:04:14] I I'm not in love with that label because it suggests to most practitioners that this is a heart problem and it's not. Patients go to cardiologists, which is important. The heart is racing. Oftentimes it skips around and that sort of thing, but the patients almost across the board. Their heart structurally is fine.

[00:04:37] So then the cardiologist look at the case and go I don't know what to do except. Slow down the heart with something like beta blockers. And I remember as a patient asking the cardiologist what's causing this? I'm sick from head to toe. Can you ignore the heart problem and figure out what just happened to me?

[00:04:59] Why [00:05:00] am I completely disabled? A fast heart rate is not gonna cause you to be disabled, right? And they said, no, we can't do that. I thought, okay, can you gimme a list of things that would cause an abnormally fast heart rate so my doctors can start to rule things out? No, we don't know that either.

[00:05:22] I thought it was the strangest journey, Autumn , frankly. But what we noticed working through and now seeing thousands of patients at POS care for over a decade is these commonalities include things like chronic inflammatory condition. There's a propensity to develop high intracranial pressure that needs to be figured out.

[00:05:44] The vagus nerve problem, as you mentioned, which isn't actually. A vagus nerve problem. Love to talk about that. And then there's some personality commonalities, like a tendency to develop anxiety type [00:06:00] symptoms. And the anxiety can exhibit like anxiety or it can exhibit more like almost an OCD attention to detail.

[00:06:08] We like things a certain way. We tend to be very high achievers and. There's an overlap with the autism spectrum in some of the social issues, that sort of thing. So I've come to see autism as, and I think most people do as a spectrum, right? And on the end, or patients are more functional, they're not necessarily nonverbal, that sort of thing.

[00:06:36] Those are our POS patients. And it's not all bad. It's a real smart group of people. The organization ability, again, that attention to detail is amazing. And then on the other end, I see the patients who are nonverbal, who kept trouble functioning in just normal day-to-day living. I don't know that they're all the same.

[00:06:58] I have a [00:07:00] feeling, autism. That diagnosis is not unlike something like pots, where POTS to us is not a condition. POTS is not a disease process.

[00:07:16] It's a presentation that the heart rate's going faster, but it doesn't say anything about the cause. So we see multiple reasons that a patient would end up with that diagnosis of pots. I have a feeling autism and even chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia some of these invisible illnesses likely are also on a spectrum and they come to a similar place from many different directions.

[00:07:44] And. That needs to be picked apart. I have a feeling with pods, we wanna change the labels from pods to whatever's caused it. I'd like to see with autism something similar where there's a reason that occurs, there's a reason, [00:08:00] there's a broad spectrum. Along each aspect of that spectrum are the causes, the driving factors somewhat different, perhaps.

[00:08:10] Autumn Carter: Definitely shows up differently and it's like I said, this child has been a puzzle and what works one day does not work another. It's a lot. Yeah. And it's very exhausting because it's the middle of summer. I have six more days until school starts and I'm counting them down. 

[00:08:29]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: We often say with our POTS patients, when one person in the family has pots, it dramatically affects the entire family.

[00:08:38] And I think something similar could be said for autism. I know I had two kids, they both got sick. My son was much sicker than my daughter. He couldn't go to school for over three years. He developed severe osteoporosis. He broke his arm, just throwing a ball, just putting on a coat, and we had to figure out what the heck was going on.

[00:08:58] And then, so my [00:09:00] daughter felt like, oh. He's getting all the attention. It kinda shifted those family dynamics. And then three of us were sick. My husband at the time was fine. It's tough on a family, so the attention that you need to give to a child who's sick or affected or whatever I think all kids to some degree feel like they never get enough attention.

[00:09:22] But it accentuates that. It's hard. It's just hard. 

[00:09:26] Autumn Carter: Yeah. Oh, I can't imagine how old were your kids when all of you. When your husband was only one and one child. 

[00:09:33]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes, I was almost 50. I got sick when I was 46, I think. And then my son got sick about a year and a half later. He was eight years old.

[00:09:44] My daughter, I thought she was okay. Tum because she was staying in school, didn't really notice anything. Until she was about 12, and I noticed we were at a store. She was bending over. She says, I think I just need to go get something to eat, or whatever. Something wasn't [00:10:00] right, and I tested her. We can test for pods by having a patient lie down, check their heart rate, and then have 'em stand up and check it again.

[00:10:09] She couldn't do it. Yeah, and I realized, gosh, how did this happen? She just kinda worked around it the best she could. She kept moving, she'd sit down, she had to and it displayed more the psychiatric component, I think, than physical. She had more depression, anxiety type symptoms. The rest of it.

[00:10:31] She figured out how to work through. So we all presented differently, but we were all fairly dramatically affected. But yeah, a family with an 8-year-old, a 12-year-old, and then the mom sick as a dog, we, gosh, we went to probably 50 doctors. I am not exaggerating. 'cause I thought, this isn't subtle. This isn't something I can just push through, I'm completely shut down by this, as is my son. We're [00:11:00] just not getting to the right doctor. We'll travel around. We'll find the right one. There wasn't one. And then when I did finally get that diagnosis of pots I thought, this is the answer. Yay. We have objective diagnosis. There'll be a treatment plan.

[00:11:19] They'll know what's causing it. We'll all be saved. And by the way you're talking, it was just so banging your head against the wall. Even after three years in clinical trials, the head researcher, I begged him for information. What are you thinking? What could this possibly be? And he said we think pods patients are perfectly normal.

[00:11:42] They're just more aware of their own body. You have got to be kidding me. And I turned to my son and I said. We're on. I don't have a clue, so it started what ended up being a [00:12:00] 10 year journey looking for answers, and my kids and I were not the same. They were not the same as each other. There were different things at play, but we started with the commonalities.

[00:12:13] That's when I set up genetic disease investigators. I thought, if I'm gonna be looking into this, what are the chances that the three of us could be so sick? And my husband at the time was fine, and there's no genetic influence, so there's gotta be something. And I really wanted to head that route because if we could give patience, objectivity, eventually.

[00:12:35] This is why you're set up for this. This is what got things going, and this is what we can measure in the blood. This is what we're gonna treat. Then it takes away that lack of validation, that kind of invisible illness thing. The thought from a lot of doctors that if they can't figure it out, it must be the patient's fault.

[00:12:58] Maybe they, just need [00:13:00] to meditate or whatever. Psychosomatic. 

[00:13:02] Autumn Carter: Oh, 

[00:13:02]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: no. 

[00:13:03] Autumn Carter: Yeah, 

[00:13:03]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: it's right. Oh, don't even start on that. I know when it was suggested to me maybe this is an anxiety thing, I'm not even gonna go there.

[00:13:12] And patients can present that way, but I knew something changed when I got a virus.

[00:13:17] I said, that's a huge clue. And everything shifted so we could figure out what happened. We have a chance to recover and fortunately we did. So it was quite the journey though. Yeah. 

[00:13:34] Autumn Carter: And I'm so sorry for the journey you're going on Vagus nerve and then let's tie in Vagus Nerve and then COVID.

[00:13:40] Yeah. And then I really wanna dive in, like just, I wanna tie it in now before I forget, and then really dive into maybe a little more of the symptoms for people who might be wondering and then, yeah. 

[00:13:53] Giving them hope, like some direction on where to head. And then of course, where to find you at the end of all this.

[00:13:59]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: [00:14:00] Yes. And this is a lot, so I'll follow your lead. And a lot of what I'm going to share with you is in a book I released, gosh, 12 years ago of the cause. Do you have it 

[00:14:12] Autumn Carter: so you can show us? 

[00:14:13]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: No. It's an ebook. No worries. But I'm happy to share it with anybody who wants it. And we have moved far beyond this book, but I think a lot of it will be new for most people.

[00:14:27] And I, revealed some of the commonalities and one was a propensity to develop high intracranial pressure. It's easy to miss it, it can be treated and hugely important to find. But then the second thing I figured out was this vagus nerve thing. And I think this is so important right now. You mentioned COVID We probably see, oh gosh, maybe 30% of our patients now are triggered to develop pods by either COVID the vaccination, or it was just another [00:15:00] thing that made them worse. They're progressing and then they get a virus or have a vaccination and down they go. So COVID long haulers are oftentimes POTS patients.

[00:15:15] They may not know it because their doctors may not ask them to stand up. We don't typically do that in a medical evaluation, but certain types of inflammation are kicked off by certain viruses, sars, viruses, et cetera. Especially, and the type of inflammation that can drive the illness is what we're looking for.

[00:15:37] So ultimately, if it affects the cardiovascular system, then patients can develop pots. The heart rate starts taking off. The blood vessels get damaged, the inner lining of the blood vessels becomes damaged. Veins dilate blood tends to pool. It's not circulating properly another Domino's fall, but the vagus nerve component, [00:16:00] what I did when I was suspecting this, and again, this was over 10 years ago, one reason I was suspecting it was my digestion was completely wonky

[00:16:10] anything I talk about concerning this, put it through your filter, Autumn of autism, because there is overlap, there is autonomic symptoms, et cetera and autism also. So that could be helpful. But my digestion completely failed me. I went to. Horrible constipation, episodic diarrhea. I was bloated.

[00:16:35] Food just sat in my intestine sometimes. It was never normal. I had four big Tupperware containers in my closet of every GI medication in man, and my day had to kinda center around trying to have a bowel movement, and that didn't happen before. Ultimately, the doctors tested my gallbladder and it wasn't working.

[00:16:57] And they said, okay, we should remove that. [00:17:00] Said, okay, talk to me. Is it like an appendix? Is it inflamed? Infected? You know it's gonna blow. And I said, no, it looks fine. Okay. Is it filled with gallstones? 'cause that would be a reason to have to remove it. Said, Nope, there's no stones. Okay, is the opening maybe stuck or it's not opening and allowing the bile to be ejected?

[00:17:24] And I said, Nope. The opening's fine. Okay, this sounds neurological to me. I would really like the opportunity to think this through because if I could figure out a way to correct that neurology, I could keep the organ and I love cheese. Life is easier with a gall bladder, and I remember the doctors getting upset by that initially, but.

[00:17:49] Thank goodness that was the route I took. So what ultimately pushed me into figuring this out was I couldn't have a bowel movement. I'd been everywhere. [00:18:00] I tried everything and. I suspected I was having pain and or twingy pain ish in the lower right hand quadrant of my abdomen. And I suspected maybe the valve between the large and small intestine won't open.

[00:18:18] Things are pushing up against it again, a neurological thing. And I went to my doctor and discussed that and she's I have no idea. She sent me to a GI doctor and he goes. I have no idea. And then he sent me to a surgeon to see if they could open it and the surgeon said, oh, Diana, if you're suspecting vagus nerve problems never have abdominal surgery unless it's life threatening.

[00:18:42] He said, we cut through that nerve, we cause vagus nerve problems. Went. Okay, good to know. And then ultimately I was sent to a kidney doctor to see if some of the pain was a kidney stone and I never had a kidney stone, but I thought, from what I hear, you know if you [00:19:00] have a stone 'cause you're doubled over in pain, but Okay.

[00:19:04] And this doctor was really nice. And so I talked to him, said, I'm suspecting this schizo a vagus nerve problem. Maybe this valve, the ileocecal valve won't open properly. He said that's fascinating. And I was considering compression at the neck by the vessels, and he said I, think that's amazing that you're thinking in terms of anatomy.

[00:19:27] I'm here to look for kidney stones, so let's do that. So we did, and he gave me this dye to drink that, ugh, the nasty stuff, and imaged it and there were no stones. He sent me on my way and I was at home. Three days later, I still no bowel movement, and I think this was just a divine intervention thing.

[00:19:49] I got a kidney stone. I kid you not. And I knew immediately, 'cause again, I'm doubled over in pain and I called this doctor and I said, you're gonna think I'm [00:20:00] crazy. I know three days ago. I didn't have a kidney stone. I think I do now. He goes, I'll meet you at the hospital. And he did. I had a stone. He removed it and I was waking up from anesthesia kind of groggy, and he's standing.

[00:20:15] I just remember it was real close, and as soon as my eyes opened, he said, Diana, you were right. I was like. What? And he said, it's your ileocecal valve. He said, that I gave you three days ago is still in you, but it's all crammed up against that valve. That valve won't open. Went, oh. Okay, good to know.

[00:20:36] What do I do? He said, oh, I don't know. I'm a kidney specialist. But I had confirmation Autumn that this was indeed the valve not opening and my suspicion was everything was pointing to neurological. So I went home. I thought, okay, being on my own, if I am correct. I thought through the anatomy that I learned in optometry school, [00:21:00] and yes, it had been decades, but I remember the teacher going through the cranial nerve saying the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the body, et cetera, has two parts and there's the long pre ganglionic portion that goes down into the chest and the abdomen, and there's a gap.

[00:21:19] What we call synaps, and then there's a tiny little post ganglionic vagus nerve, and that is so small, it's almost a part of the organ itself, and I remembered those exact words. Why did I remember that? But I thought, okay, I think I still have the post ganglionic part of this nerve. If it's damaged any place along this route.

[00:21:43] If it's compressed at the neck, like what I was thinking, what have you, could I still use this tiny little post ganglion nerve and how could I stimulate it? And I remembered thinking, okay, what are the chemical messengers involved with the [00:22:00] vagus nerve? It's acetylcholine. Okay. That's not a drug though.

[00:22:04] The body breaks it down immediately. So what are the substitutes? We learn the agonists or substitutes for these neurotransmitters. That, okay. Vagus nerve. That's easy 'cause it's the only nic acetylcholine or nerve in the body. Its agonist is nicotine. So I called my husband and asked him on the way home from work if he would bring me a nicotine patch.

[00:22:30] He said, what are you up to? I said, I'll explain it when you get home but I put it on that lower right hand quadrant of my abdomen and imagined the nicotine going through the skin, going through the tissue landing. Hopefully on the receptors of that post ganglionic vagus nerve. That's exactly what happened.

[00:22:53] The valve open had normal bowel movement. What? So I used it again the next day. Great. Next day, four days, [00:23:00] and then I was. Eaten up by inflammation. It looked like my abdomen had fire ants all over it. Nicotine is a great diagnostic tool to make sure the post ganglionic nerve and the receptors work, but it's a terrible treatment.

[00:23:17] So instead, I backed up and I said, okay, could we figure out a combination of ingredients that are already available designated as safe by the FDA? I don't wanna. Try to create a new drug. I can't wait for that, but know the mechanism of action where it could come together. Stimulate the receptors of the post ganglionic nerve cover for any genetic issues involved in making that neurotransmitter cross the blood brainin barrier to support cognition Also.

[00:23:50] Cover for any nutrient deficiencies we could get that could interfere with the deduction of the neurotransmitter and not be so strong that it shuts down these receptors [00:24:00] where they get numb, which they can, that can happen with nicotine, and worked in my kitchen and figured that out and gave it to my kids and I, it's now called Parsim Plus and we continue to have normal bowel movements.

[00:24:14] Cognition was improved. Then I realized this was doing more than hitting just the vagus nerve or more than even just crossing the blood-brain barrier. There are other receptors that are not nicotinic, they're muscarinic. And if we could get those going again, also we'd have a better chance of success.

[00:24:36] And it took me a while to figure out how can I be sure I'm hitting the muscarinic receptors? This was also another God thing that I was an optometrist and I knew muscarinic receptors are in the pupils. Eye. So if we're hitting those, also the pupils would normalize, pupils tend to get big in these inflammatory conditions, 'cause these [00:25:00] sympathetic nervous systems and overdrive, we get more light sensitive, that sort of thing.

[00:25:04] And they would normalize when we took Paray Plus. So I knew I hid it. And that's where the five patents comes in. At the time I thought Autumn , I don't think anybody's tried to figure this out before. And really work through the problem. We don't need to stimulate our vagus nerve. That's an autonomic nerve.

[00:25:23] It works all by itself. If this is a neurotransmitter problem, it's affecting more than just that nerve. And it was, a systemic problem. Hence the patents. And it an essential part of recovery for so many of us. 

[00:25:40] Autumn Carter: That was five patents are for the one thing. 

[00:25:43]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes, para some plus, right? 

[00:25:45] Autumn Carter: And I'm sure it's like most supplements or drugs where it can work for not just pots.

[00:25:51] So what else have you Oh yeah. And it's 

[00:25:53]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: not a POTS thing. Think in terms of, and that's part of what I was able to step back and look at. In pods patients, [00:26:00] the autonomic nervous system is dramatically affected, right? But inflammation is blocking the ability of the neurology to work. Think in terms of chronic inflammatory conditions that are not pods.

[00:26:14] Even aging, for example. We tend to get tired. Digestion gets more sluggish, the brain isn't quite as sharp. I look at that and go. Why aren't we more proactive? This is blocking some of that neurotransmitter. It's not that I hear, oh, I'm just getting old. Oh, I just don't take good care of myself. I need to exercise more.

[00:26:37] And I go I don't think that's it. I think we have inflammaging and inflammation that increases with age. You're losing some of the ability for the autonomic nervous system to work we'll just put it back and indeed, I think I'm the most active person. I know. I have the highest energy level of anyone at any age.

[00:26:58] 'cause I'm, that's amazing. Considering [00:27:00] where you are. Oh gosh. Yeah. Bedridden for a decade and I'm old now. I am old, so it's, you gonna look 

[00:27:07] Autumn Carter: it everybody who's listening, like you need to do her image. That's very sweet. 

[00:27:12]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: No, I just celebrated my 68th birthday. 

[00:27:15] Autumn Carter: Wow. Nope, but I'm, I was doing the math and I'm like, but she doesn't, yeah, it was that computing with the way you look.

[00:27:23]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: That's great and I like to think it doesn't compete with the way I think too. But I think we can be proactive in our health and stepping back and looking for other chronic inflammatory conditions. I'm just gonna mention autism there, and I look at fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome. How many of these other people are dealing, or PTSD?

[00:27:46] Oh, traumatic brain injury 

[00:27:48] Autumn Carter: sounds like IBS as well. 

[00:27:51]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: A thousand percent. I don't think IBS is really a diagnosis. 

[00:27:56] Autumn Carter: Yeah. It's like I've been given that before and I looked at, I'm like, [00:28:00] serious. That's stupid that you took the easy route. 

[00:28:03]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yeah. Yeah. I like to know the science, like what exactly is happening, if it's irritated.

[00:28:09] Okay. What is irritating? What I 

[00:28:10] Autumn Carter: needed to do was take the colonoscopy medicine. I was fine after that. Oh yeah, that works, right? I got the rest of the procedure, but all I needed was the medicine to kick it all out. 

[00:28:22]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yeah, there you go. I just, I need to know the whys and hows down to the molecular level to really understand, and I kept asking why, and the junk diagnoses I see where we just kinda lump patients into a label that's completely arbitrary.

[00:28:43] Really has nothing to do with what's happening on a scientific basis, on a very small level, is useless. That doesn't guide us at all. But the autonomic nervous system was one of those places you had to get down to quantum. [00:29:00] Information on it because it seemed invisible to most doctors.

[00:29:04] Most doctors don't like it because they can't measure it. Blood tests are limited. It's too subjective in their mind. So instead, I had to get down to very small details to figure out what is objective about it and where are people failing with this, and what can we do to pick it up. So you're right.

[00:29:25] It isn't just a POTS thing, but it tends to have the commonality of inflammation and our ability to measure chronic inflammation is so limited. Right now. Research is much further than practice, so we stay in research, but our ability to measure some of these chemicals just dates maybe 30 years. And in that's perspective wise, that's actually a very small amount of time.

[00:29:50] So someday it won't be that big of a deal to have a proper diagnosis based on where the patient falls down. Inflammatory wise, we won't deal with these [00:30:00] old age presentations because we will take care of that inflammation. We'll be on top of it, and we won't deal with the same invisible illnesses that we're seeing now that are truly not really invisible.

[00:30:14] Yeah. 

[00:30:16] Autumn Carter: It'll be a process. Very visible in the lived experience, that's for sure. But when you go to the doctor and they can't, it's 

[00:30:23]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: so hard. Only see it if you get that look from doctors at first they go, okay, let's run some tests, blah, blah, blah. Everything looks good. And then you get that look of maybe you're one of those depressed or anxious females or at your hormones or something.

[00:30:39] Autumn Carter: I had such a, especially if you're female. Oh my goodness. 

[00:30:42]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Don't even get me started. I remember completely disabled seeing like one of the early doctors and he goes let's check your hormones. And I said the last time I looked, hormone changes don't cause autonomic dysfunction. I thought that was just the most easy blow off thing to [00:31:00] do.

[00:31:00] And fortunately my hormones were fine. I was teasing with a group. I have a Patreon group, bots Rebels. We meet every week or two and talk, and the guy said they get checked for drugs and women get checked for hormones and it's not either one of those, but the look you get from doctors of, oh and you can just see the doubt in their eyes.

[00:31:25] Oh, I just hated that. So going rogue, if you will, and just walking away from all the doctors and staying and looking for it ourselves was really helpful. And then tippy toe back into getting a doctor. Once what's going on you don't have to worry about losing validity with the medical practitioners

[00:31:46] Autumn Carter: what I really learned from what you were saying just now is to really trust your own gut. 

[00:31:51]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes. 

[00:31:52] Autumn Carter: That you know yourself best. Yes. What your equilibrium should be. What functioning properly [00:32:00] is. Yeah. And we in the western world are so well, our doctor tells us what it is. No. They don't live in your body.

[00:32:09] They don't know. 

[00:32:10]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes. 

[00:32:11] Autumn Carter: And it can be so hard. Like you were talking about, putting it into words that they can understand. Yeah. And there is such a gap in between our understanding and theirs and their language and ours. Sometimes it's a different language. Yeah. And my background is in billing and coding, so I can speak some of the language.

[00:32:31] I know some of what they're saying. Yeah. Still, it's the lived experience. That's the most important part. And at the end of the day, we are our own best advocate. Yeah. And that's what you are able to do. It sounds like it started with you and then once you figured yourself out more is figuring out your children plus not having a bowel movement, or, I forget what it even is, but if you don't have 'em within a certain amount of time, that's pretty critical.

[00:32:58] 'cause that's literally waste in your [00:33:00] body then it's staying there. Yeah. 

[00:33:01]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: I was worried about a bowel perforation. It was just so full. I thought, okay, something's gotta go somewhere, that was a scary time, but I think personality wise too, I was to some degree just set up to do this. I look back on my life and I say, oh, I was perfectly healthy until I got this virus.

[00:33:23] But I remember there was once I was 12 years old and I asked my mom to take me to a doctor. She was like, what's up? I had this small varicose vein on my leg and she took me to the doctor and he's what are you worried about? And I go this. And he goes that's a surface vein, a little varicose vein.

[00:33:44] I said, I. You tell me why a 12-year-old girl would have a very good speech. And I remember, okay, I guess I always was questioning the whys from early on, so they threw out pods. It's what's that? [00:34:00] And why is that happening? And then they, and just keep asking why, once you have a diagnosis, you're not home yet.

[00:34:06] You have to know the whys. And until you know those, you don't have the full picture. I was always very curious and really wanted to know details, and that did go back to very early time in my life that I'd forgotten about. Yeah, I was prone to constipation. I remember that I was prone to anemia and I always wondered, why me?

[00:34:30] Why not my sisters? We eat the same things you get the same amount of exercise, something is different. What is that and why? And. It took until I was 48 to start to get answers. 

[00:34:45] Autumn Carter: Wow. And that's, I'm so glad you did, but that's so long. 

[00:34:51]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Oh yeah, it's 

[00:34:52] Autumn Carter: too long. 

[00:34:53]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: I wouldn't wish it on anybody, honestly.

[00:34:56] It was just a horrible journey for all of us. [00:35:00] Now though, when I see patients, the empathy never goes away. It takes you right back into that horrible like living in hell journey. And I wanna do anything I can do to help pull them out of that and advocate for them. You and, actually one of my advisors, my spiritual advisor, who was my accountant, I said, it was such a horrible journey.

[00:35:28] Why couldn't it have been like two years or something? And he said, Diana, if it had been two or even three years, you probably would've gone right back into practicing optometry. I said, oh. That's true and now you are so motivated to help others release new information. As there change how all this is viewed, you're actually moving the needle.

[00:35:53] Whereas if you'd gone back to optometry, you would've benefited from your journey, but nobody else would've. But I guess [00:36:00] hindsight is a lot easier to accept once you've recovered. But there is no possible way in the middle of that journey someone could have told me. Oh, it'll be worth that. No, I still struggle with that.

[00:36:14] It was horrible. 

[00:36:15] Autumn Carter: Optometrists are a dime a dozen. Sorry for those that are That's right. From good one. They are hard to find. And I used to work for an optometrist in a past life, so I'm very picky. And even still there are How many optometrists compared to how many people who can specialize in pots?

[00:36:33]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes. Who 

[00:36:34] Autumn Carter: can specialize in inflammation? 

[00:36:36]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: No, you are right and actually, 

[00:36:38] Autumn Carter: and you actually know what they're doing within that specialization. 

[00:36:41]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: The personal experience too. It's like I'm the pots whisperer. I can hear what a patient's experiencing that all the doctors go, I have no idea. And I go, oh, I know what that is.

[00:36:52] It was just such a long involved journey. I think I could hear from a patient, I see purple elephants with pink polkadots. I'm [00:37:00] like, oh yeah, I know what that is. So that personal experience does make a difference. But I'm noticing now I wanna train others to. Do what I do. That's what I was thinking.

[00:37:12] I'll stop here. And it is tough because these patients are so difficult. All the cases are extraordinarily complex. The patients get to the point where that anxiety that changed to the brain, which I wanna talk a little bit more about, gets bad. They're almost paranoid. They're very detail oriented.

[00:37:32] They're afraid of the very medicines that can help 'em. It's a tap dance, not only medically is very difficult, but dealing with the patients is an incredible challenge. It's not for me 'cause I've been there, I have the empathy, but if they have not been there, they just I a, large number of them think that POTS patients are crazy.

[00:37:56] And I'd say, oh, I know whether they, we present that way, they'll go [00:38:00] away, but we have to work with them at that state to be able to hold their hand through that process, getting through it. So not everybody's cut out for that, right? It's like working in a preschool or something, or working with autistic children.

[00:38:16] Not everybody's cut out for it. It's a challenge, right? So yeah. I never thought I was 

[00:38:22] Autumn Carter: cut out for it and come to find out one of my children possibly has it. And it's gonna be learning everything. 

[00:38:29]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: That changes everything I think. And. I'm not an autism specialist. That is not where I go, but I'm an autonomic nervous system specialist and becoming a chronic inflammatory specialist and all autism, I think we do need to rule out the high intracranial pressure and then the vagus nerve problem is oftentimes a neurotransmitter problem secondary to something inflammatory.

[00:38:56] You can see the patterns of low acetylcholine. You can [00:39:00] see large pupil site sensitivity, tendency to constipation, the similar presentation in that way, and then the inflammation that it causes. Inflammatory pots, and it can come from many different directions, but the kind that will cause changes to the cardiovascular system interfere with acetylcholine, et cetera, also changes.

[00:39:25] The brain chemistry and the reason that happens is the oxidation from the inflammation, it damages blood vessels, damages ultimately organs. It shifts the brain chemistry more toward one of anxiety, more that overachievement that attention to detail. That is treatable. One of the supplements on vagus nerve support.com, I mean there's para Simplus, there's also NAC Max that hits that oxidation.

[00:39:56] And this is where I told you that in [00:40:00] autism or in the patients, we see that anxiety can come down and be controlled and. Fortunately it stops that cycle of inflammation causing oxidation, which causes more inflammation. And we had that patient not that long ago where the patient was a nurse practitioner, which is great 'cause we could talk medical.

[00:40:22] And her daughter was a patient with pods. We were able to help them. But her younger son, and again, I'm interested in genetic overlaps, right? Her younger son was. Dramatically autistic. He was nonverbal. He was what, eight, 10 years old? Maybe he'd never spoken in his life. And we were talking about that oxidation, and there's already research showing that in autism there's that oxidation and Nacm Max hits that.

[00:40:51] And we put her on it. We put her daughter on it. Hugely helpful. And she gave it to her son. And in two days [00:41:00] he was verbal. We had to have a good cry over that one. I thought, okay, we know this research is already released. In autism, there's some inflammatory effect to the brain. Anytime there's inflammation, there's oxidation.

[00:41:17] The two always go together. So we always like to hit that oxidation too. When I see an autistic child. And that need to have things a certain way is not unlike an inflammatory POTS patient. We get, as patients, we get to that point, it evolves over time. But we don't like change. We can't handle stress.

[00:41:44] I couldn't even make a phone call when I was sick. Too stressful, and then it got so bad I couldn't even handle a stressful thought like. What's the weather today? That was too stressful and I was in a [00:42:00] room with the shades pulled. I had eye covers, I had earplugs. I was sensitive to light, sound, movement, anything I was sensitive to.

[00:42:11] So that kind of brain on fire feeling, when I think about what it felt like to me, and then I see an autistic child wonder, is that what they're feeling? It'd be great to be in the brain to know, and of course we can't be, but I can't help but understand there is overlap and if we can address some of those overlaps, we can give some relief.

[00:42:36] So do look at. Autonomic nervous system symptoms like constipation, that's too easy. Harrison Plus will help with that and get the nerve working. That's also the anti-inflammatory nerve. Nacm Max will help with that oxidation and it does it quickly. And the researching, and those are both on your website.

[00:42:54] Autumn Carter: So I'm thinking of people here. 

[00:42:57]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes, I even had to 

[00:42:58] Autumn Carter: take a look and, okay, we are [00:43:00] recording. 

[00:43:00]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: It's a lot. And I have a real interest in autism because not only do our patients present on the spectrum somewhere, but their relatives who share some of those genes can be on the other end of the autistic spectrum and we can give them some help.

[00:43:17] So yeah, it's an interesting puzzle. I'd love to see that picked apart more. I don't think there's one thing causing it, and I don't think autism is one thing. I don't think pots is one thing. We know that we've seen thousands of patients, but we can start. You've 

[00:43:31] Autumn Carter: lived it too, I think. I love interviewing people who've lived there, not just.

[00:43:34] They work with these people, but if they lived it just brings it home so much more. There's more passion. Oh yeah. More. Along with passion. The desire to actually dive in all the way instead of superficial. 

[00:43:49]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: That's right. Getting 

[00:43:50] Autumn Carter: to your wife and there's 

[00:43:51]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: the empathy. I would've given my right arm when I was going through this to have been able to talk to somebody who went through it.[00:44:00] 

[00:44:00] Not only went through it, they recovered that. That sort of hope would've been wonderful. No one could give us that, right? We were just bumbling through more or less blindly for a long time. 

[00:44:12] Autumn Carter: That brings up that question. What is recovered for you personally? That you've lived in? Yeah. What does recovered look like, I assume?

[00:44:20] Oh, it was 

[00:44:20]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: perfectly normal. Honestly, I think it's more than perfectly normal. I think had I not gone through that, I would not be as proactive in my health. Would I be sitting on the couch more? Maybe would I not be as sharp? Maybe. But you haven't 

[00:44:38] Autumn Carter: retired yet, so there's that. 

[00:44:40]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: You're right.

[00:44:41] I know. My friends say you ought to think about that. It's like, why would I wanna do that? 

[00:44:45] Autumn Carter: When you're passionate about it. It's not about getting to a financial goal anymore. 

[00:44:51]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: No, it's not. And you get to a certain age you wanna. Leave your mark. You wanna leave your legacy. You wanna help as many people as you can, teach [00:45:00] your life changes from building your empire to exiting, making a difference in the world.

[00:45:07] Autumn Carter: Sure that Mark stays. Yeah. 'cause you don't wanna be the only passion resource and then you're gone. 

[00:45:14]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: No, and it, this isn't like I'm punching a time clock. The patients I see are so grateful we often cry together. What kind of job can say that the reward is so high.

[00:45:29] So I still have goals, or I want to change these labels. I want to reveal the genetics of a lot of this. Push for other people to know and to have it in textbooks so that people don't go through what we went through. That should not have happened. I look back on that, I think that should not have happened.

[00:45:48] And frankly, it shouldn't have taken an optometrist in Texas to, have to figure it out really. But I was in the body of one and I had children [00:46:00] affected. So the motivation was there. Researchers. Can go home at five o'clock or whatever and they don't have to think about it. I was thinking about it 24 7 and that set me up for forgetting answers. It did. Yeah. 

[00:46:16] Autumn Carter: Okay, so now, let me ask personal questions. I was thinking I'll wait until the recording to ask those, but no. 

[00:46:21]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yeah, and I'm pretty much an everything book. I put my health, it's first of all for me, 

[00:46:25] Autumn Carter: Oh, okay. So do you take insurance is the question. Can you see people, do you take insurance and can you see people virtually? 

[00:46:34]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: At Pods Care right now we're trying to teach, so we, have a long waiting list of patients for full care, but we were virtual and we would like to keep it that way. We weren't, until COVID came along, we had patients come in the office and we had them come from all over the world.

[00:46:54] This isn't a problem with understanding pots like just in the us. We had them come from all [00:47:00] over and then COVID happened and I remember saying to the staff, brace yourself this virus could be of the type, 'cause it's a SARS virus to trigger pots in those predisposed. And indeed it was. And we were already set up to go remote.

[00:47:21] We just immediately flipped the switch and we were busier than we'd ever been. And then it was so great for the patients to not have to travel. Okay, how can we continue to be remote for these people so they can be in their bed or couch or whatever, save the money for travel and not have the horrible, slide downhill from the travel, they would get home and it would take a month for them to get back to where they were, 

[00:47:48] Autumn Carter: So were you able to downsize your brick and mortar as well, your building? 

[00:47:53]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes. Just in June, last June, we were able to do that. So it's, been a [00:48:00] continual morphing. We've continued to change and grow.

[00:48:04] The research has also been continuing. 'cause again, I wanted to release more than what I had. So yeah. It's a process. Everything's a process. 

[00:48:13] Autumn Carter: Is so helpful because I'm thinking for myself with my own gi and definitely with my, the one son that I was talking about. And when you were talking, I was thinking, I wonder if my mom has it with her issues.

[00:48:27] And what triggered it was my stepdad passing away. She would have heart arrhythmia. She had to, there were a lot of things going on for her. 

[00:48:37]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Have you ever checked her heart rate, like after lying down maybe 10 minutes to get it at the bottom and then have her stand up? 

[00:48:45] Autumn Carter: We're no longer in communication.

[00:48:46] We had a really big falling out. There's addiction there, and a lot of other things. And so it was the step back with when you are in recovery and you're seeing a therapist, then we'll communicate again. [00:49:00] Until then, you need some kind of motivation. You're not doing it for yourself, hopefully for your grandchildren, because I wanted to cut off that generational cycle.

[00:49:08]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: No, that's so important. Stop that toxic cycle. 

[00:49:13] Autumn Carter: And I don't feel anger. It's just pain for her living that life and not, being in a place where. You're willing to do the hard work because a lot more pain comes up while you're doing the hard work. So we're, not in communication at this point.

[00:49:32] Hopefully one day. 

[00:49:34]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Hopefully one day. Yeah. We see a fair amount of addiction. Because his brain is like on fire and people are willing to try to do anything to calm it. And we had one patient, he was hooked on heroin and fortunately had a doctor who said he's not on heroin to get high.

[00:49:53] He's not in his room trying to party. He is trying to relieve this horrible suffering and it's [00:50:00] looking just for an escape somehow. And indeed he was able to get off here. Praise God. We had one gentleman who lived in the basement of an addiction center and because he was horribly addicted and he was able to recover from the addiction, but he was still so incredibly sick and we were able to help him with the sickness part and then he was able to move on with his life.

[00:50:23] That was an especially rewarding case 'cause his dad was an optometrist. And he found me that way. And to be able to help his son one of my colleagues. That was just an amazing process. But we see a lot of mental disorders from the fact the brain is so dramatically affected and we're so miserable.

[00:50:46] About 40% of the patients we see have admitted to trying to kill themselves. This isn't some subtle. Fatigue or whatever, it's crippling and it [00:51:00] feels like your body's self-destructing and there's only so much torture one can take. Everybody has their limit, right? And it just, and that suffering sometimes becomes a desire.

[00:51:13] So again, it's another reason I keep working. That shouldn't be happening. And I would love ultimately to have enough objective tests where we measure things in the blood and we go into mental institutions if that's a thing. Or places where people are diagnosed with mental illness, and we look at the chemicals that could be affecting the brain.

[00:51:36] First, start with the objective. Treat what we can find and see if some of those mental conditions don't resolve. I have a feeling they, that 

[00:51:45] Autumn Carter: reminds me of the Robin Williams movie, and it's based on a true story where he gave them medicine and music and they were able to come back out of their free state.

[00:51:59]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yes, 

[00:51:59] Autumn Carter: [00:52:00] and be around, but then their body got used to it and they reverted back. But it's a beautiful movie and I have the book. I have yet to read the book. It's on my giant list of books to read. 

[00:52:10]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Do you know what it's called? 

[00:52:12] Autumn Carter: I don't. I'll find it and I'll email it to you. But it is a good movie and it has Robert De Niro in it.

[00:52:18] Yeah, I saw it when I was a kid, but I remember really liking it and just that research part. But the research with the heartfelt passion always stands out to me. I love heartfelt, do the world type of anything instead of thriller. This is where I live in this world. 

[00:52:36]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: I not lived through every psych symptom known to man through this.

[00:52:41] Everyone, and I knew it was driven by something medical, I just didn't understand it. But if I was like a 13-year-old girl or something and exhibited these psych symptoms, I would've probably thought I was crazy, as would my doctors and with my, especially 

[00:52:57] Autumn Carter: because if you didn't have those symptoms, just having the hormone [00:53:00] change, you already feel crazy at that age.

[00:53:01] I would never want that age. 

[00:53:04]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yeah. Had, I not gotten sick before my kids, I think it would've been a disaster. Would I have looked at them and gone testing is normal. Thank God I got sick first. So we didn't even entertain those suspicions with the doctor didn't even entertain it.

[00:53:21] Yeah. And everything did normalize. But going through that, it did make me wonder how many people are walking around in the world suffering. Like I saw news where somebody destroys this beautiful statue or something, and I thought. I wonder what kind of inflammatory condition they're dealing with to make them wanna do that.

[00:53:42] Yeah. So again, why I'm still 

[00:53:45] Autumn Carter: working, I think, 'cause there's so many, I think it'd be beautiful for you to make a documentary at some point on 

[00:53:51]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: this. Yeah, it'd be like reliving it. But. I'll see what I can do. 

[00:53:57] Autumn Carter: I'll be the first to watch it. [00:54:00] Thank you for being on. This was amazing. Tell us the resources on where we need to go, because I'll be the first one there to check it all out.

[00:54:07]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yeah I'd love for you to get Para Plus and NAC mags and there@vagusnervesupport.com. It's tj nutrition.com. It was named TJ after my kids. Taylor and James, and then I'm at pots care.com. I'm other places, but those are probably the team. Social media. Do you have social media? Yeah, some Instagram and Facebook and there's Pinterest.

[00:54:36] Oh, you're 

[00:54:36] Autumn Carter: everywhere. 

[00:54:38]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Yeah. The Patreon account. This would be good to put up. I decided I need to put. My information somewhere 'cause I'm so spread out. So I started Pots Rebels. There's a ton of information there and we meet every week or two and talk and I answer questions and try to help people as much as I can.

[00:54:57] That's been a wonderful thing. [00:55:00] I've enjoyed that 

[00:55:00] Autumn Carter: all sounds like you're, it's your family. 

[00:55:03]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: It is, it's they become friends, honestly. Yeah. So you have something in common. You've had the history of this horrible illness and you understand each other. Yeah. It's real special. 

[00:55:17] Autumn Carter: Something beautiful about that.

[00:55:19] Yeah. Thank you so much for this. I have so many ideas of people who I'm gonna send this to. There's different podcasts that I will definitely connect you with because this is really important. And I'm so grateful for this time. This is important enough that I'm putting this in as my solo spot so it gets out sooner.

[00:55:36] So I know 

[00:55:38]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: I'm so grateful to you for sharing information. I'm just one voice. There's only so much I can do. But thank you for the work that you do. 

[00:55:46] Autumn Carter: Technology. It makes it so much better. Oh you're in Texas. I'm in Maryland. I have friends that I've never met in person that are in other countries.

[00:55:55] It's amazing. 

[00:55:55]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: It is amazing. We are very fortunate to live when we live. 

[00:55:59] Autumn Carter: [00:56:00] Absolutely. And one positive of COVID, right. That you think, yes. There's so much negative. It's nice to focus on the positive that we have technology, we have telehealth now. 

[00:56:11]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: We made it through a pandemic, which is a little weird.

[00:56:14] We made it through the other side. Yes, we did. Awesome. Thank 

[00:56:19] Autumn Carter: you again. This was 

[00:56:19]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Thank you. You appreciate it so much. Really enjoy it. 

[00:56:21] Autumn Carter: I'll talk to you later. 

[00:56:23]  Dr. Diana Driscoll- Pots Care: Okay. Look 

[00:56:23] Autumn Carter: forward to it. Bye bye. 

[00:56:25] video1054473005: Bye.

[00:56:26] Autumn Carter: Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I am your host, Autumn Carter, a certified life coach dedicated to empowering individuals to rediscover their identity, find balance, miss chaos, strengthen relationships, and pursue their dreams. My goal is to help people thrive in every aspect of their lives. I hope today's discussion inspired you and offered valuable insights.

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[00:57:58] One last thing to cover [00:58:00] the show legally, I'm a certified life coach giving general advice, so think of this, this more as a self-help book. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, so this podcast shouldn't be taken as a replacement for professional guidance from a doctor or therapist.

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