My daughter is doing hydrotherapy and seems to be getting some benefit from this. She would like to do some actual swimming to get some muscle tone and exercise tolerance happening. My thinking is seeing that its horizontal it could work for her. Have any other people with POTS found swimming effective or helpful?

Swimming laps is about the only exercise that I can do without messing up my heart rate too badly. My neuro actually recommends swimming for POTS patients because the water pressure has a similar effect of increased blood volume on symptoms (but only till you get out of the pool unfortunately). I find I have to do more side stroke than other strokes though to keep my heart rate down.

I FIRMLY believe EVERY dys patient should be immediately put into professionally supervised water therapy.
1.Water pressure decreases swelling without harmful (for us)diuretics.
2. Gravity free enviornment immediately decreases joint pain, allows upright postioning no impact excercise without BP variances (walking around in water is a good place to start), allows CV and muscle toning excercise to be started and slowly increased.
3. Is possible to tolerate water movement--even for wheelchair bound disabilities. This creates a postive mental attitude thru strengthening successes and helps with relaxation therapy approaches.
4. If you faint (you won't because BP changes do NOT happen in water as they do on land) you can not fall while in the water NO BRUISES! No fear!
5. If done in an outdoor pool, sunlight provides vitamin D many dys patients need.
6. Games played in water can be FUN! Something dys patients (esp children)have VERY little of!
7. Water therapy allows excercise without overheating issues--since water dissapates body heat at a MUCH faster rate than air.

Issues to deal with UP FRONT!
Quote from my therapist:
Start low, go slow, with a person in the know in tow!
1. Some people with limited strength and issues of fainting can become VERY afraid of drowning. Regulation floatation devices should be used to assure them of their safety and ALL patients should be well supervised until they learn their new and improved limitations. These limitations WILL be less in water--but they WILL still have limitations.
2.Getting out of the water can be a HUGE shock as gravity reasserts itself initially. This is the time to be most aware to guard against falling. Get out slo---oooowly. Then sit down and rest for a minute or two. Have a chair waiting beside the pool exit stairs for this purpose.
3. Taking a warm shower after swimming is a usual course of action. However, with dys patients this can be an issue that needs to undertaken slowly --maybe even after a period of rest outside water. Warm shower water and fatigue can cause issues with BP.
4. Water temperature if too warm can cause issues or if too cold. Take towels/robe to prevent chilling and shivers when the patient gets out of the water. DO NOT WORKOUT IN HOT TUBS OR VERY WARM WATER.

This is all from my personal experiences and from what I was taught my my physical therapist. I swim almost every day and have for over a year now. It helps--when NOTHING else does! I can now swim 1 and 1/2 miles some days and have calves of steel!

Hope this helps someone!

Great post, Sandy! You covered all the bases.

My son is in the pool as we can get him. There was no hydrotherapy facility in our insurance in our area, so we have improvised - neighbor and family pools!

My son can stay in a pool for over 3 hours. Of course, there is the devil to pay when he gets out. The other day I only let him stay 1.5 hours and he was fine the rest of the night and the next day. It is his ONLY exercise right now. He cannot tolerate anything else. It has been an effective form of exercise when nothing else could even be tried. Through swimming and a healthier foodstyle, he has lost 11 lbs., which for him is a good thing.

We don't try to make him do anything specific, though he has learned a couple of different strokes. Time outside and with friends is worth it.

Judi

Hi,

I've found swimming to be highly beneficial. (Although I've been out of the water since the end of March for a number of reasons and as it's winter here now and I can only swim in sea water -- am allergic to chlorine in pools - I am waiting to start my swimming again mid-September)

Sandy's post has pretty much covered everything except that Grubb wrote in one of his papers that we should never swim alone because of the possibility of fainting.

I've been a swimmer most of my life and the rule really is that NO ONE, not even the most experienced of swimmers should ever swim alone. Accidents happen.

About a year and a half ago, while doing laps in a harbour pool (bars around an area of the harbour to keep out sharks) I experienced weird cramping. Both feet and one hand cramped on me. I had one hand still working and luckily was able to make it to the ladder (I was in deep water) by using that one hand. I really thought I was going to drown. It served me right for not heeding Grubb's advice to never swim alone.

Also, handy hint, if swimming is the only exercise you can do -- wonderful for us because water has compression qualities -- I was told by a doc that after a swim I should walk up and down in waist deep water for a while as I'd still be getting the exercise needed for good bone-density. Something you don't get from swimming.

Meanwhile, since I've stopped swimming for the time being I tried walking -- unsuccessful. I've now been doing a pilates DVD for beginners -- just 20 minutes all done on a mat. I started doing it about 5 weeks ago and it started to help with circulation (and helped clear brain fog for a while after each excercise period) almost immediately.

I go slow, watch the instructor on the DVD carefully so I can get it 'right' and not cause injury. The great thing about this DVD is I don't have to stand at all. And as it's winter and cold here in Australia at the moment, the fact that I don't sweat properly has not been a problem. As a mattter of fact, on the days I do pilates, I then am able to go have a shower without feeling like I'm freezing getting into it.

I'm not a swimmer, but I recently started water exercise and I am amazed at how much I can do in the water. I could never do jumping jacks on land, but in water I can.

I agree - water activity is a great way for us to get some type of 'exercise'.

I just tried swimming with POTS for the first time this weekend. It was wonderful! I couldn't swim laps because something is wrong with my breathing, but I did exercises in the water and practiced floating.

It is a little scary because while I do swim while other people are around, there is no lifeguard and it is unlikely that anyone would notice if I fainted while swimming. I have never actually fainted though, I have only had near syncope, so I think I should be just fine in the pool.

Hi Sunflower,

When I start up again after a break from swimming I find I have difficultly with my breathing each time at first, and this problem can go on for a couple of weeks, but eventually it all comes together.

Hopefully your breath will come easier when swimming the more you do of it. fingers crossed.

I tried swimming back in college when I wasn't that ill even. After the 3rd class I decided not to go back. I couldn't breathe. It didn't matter that I was in kick boxing and had been getting a lot of exercise tolerance out of that.

I'm actually getting a little frustrated with my nurse practioner telling me is all I need to do is work out more.

I have been short of breath during activity since I was 8 years old and over the years it gradually got worse. I tried tolerance training from age 17 thru 20. Aerobics, Dance class, weight lifting, kick boxing, swimming. Did it help? A little. But I always without fail reached an end point, a plateau if you will where it didn't matter, I was still short of breath.

The building up tolerance to activity thing DOES help with the chest pain, heart pounding, and ever so slightly with the shortness of breath. But I gotta say, I don't think my shortness of breath symptom is going to get better due to tolerance training. Ironically for me, swimming was the worst exercise. It definitely works for some people. I've heard good things. But apparently swimming just takes too much air out of me.

Ok, I gotta admit that sometimes I get those weird short of breath things too when swimming--and some racing pulse issues. And I have NO fear of water or passing out to begin with (except when I get out I get a dizzy spell at first). So it's NOT an anxiety thing--it's an adrenal thing related to excercise.

I gotta think this would be VERY uncomfy for folks who do have water "issues."

I ran a dive spot on Roatan for 8 years--and guided snorkel tours. So I've watched people and trained folks with water fear. Usually, a life jacket helps. And slower expectations for progress--i.e do NOT push them past what feels "safe."

But there will be some people who simply can not deal with the fear and need professional guidance as they would for ANY other fear.

And passing out is rare for me--which also makes it easier for me to deal with ANS symptoms while in water.

For those who know how to use a snorkel and/or can adapt to swimming with it, I found it helped.

One, I have sore neck issues so it stops me from having to roatate my neck to breathe over and over again while swimming. For another, it allows me to breathe as needed so I'm able to continue swimming with short breath.

I do controlled breathing while swimming (the 4X4 explanation above is as good as any) and simply slow my swimming pace when this happens. Eventually it passes--for me--then I can gradually speed up the pace again. After several months of swimming this less became a problem--as did breathing issues as a whole.

BUT I do still have them with ANY excericse if I over do or go too long between work outs.

The key was paying attention--slowing immediately when it starts--and working very slowly and gradually to build tolerance. Rarely did I have to stop completely. In fact, if I did it seemed to get worse (probably due to my focusing on it). I just slowed VERY slow--sometimes just changing strokes, turning onto my back for a lap or two, or floating and barely moving for awhile til it went away.

Again, I FIRMLY believe that water is the answer to excericse problems for us--and is worth the effort to keep trying to find a way.

As alwaya, I hope this helps someone!

Even though the posts on swimming have been mostly in its (brain fog here -- can't remember if 'its' should be it's) favour it has thrown up something interesting. That a number of us experience some sort of breathing problems/challenges in the water.

My mother loves her pool. It's the only time she feels "good" in the normal sense. I'll let her tell you about it sometime and I found it very interesting.

I experience breathing challenges period--esp when attempting to excercise--but far less so in the water than otherwise.

Swimming was good for me, and it was the only form of exercise I could tolerate for a while. Then I was able to progress to walking and recumbent biking and weight lifting. Just make sure there is a lifeguard present (important for anyone swimming). For me, after I swam I had to rest for a few minutes in the water before I got out of the pool so I didn't get lightheaded.

It was wonderful when I started swimming and found that I could exercise, since I had been very active prior to getting sick. I would recommend starting slowly and building up gradually.

On the topic of swimming,

U.S. members must be extremely proud of your Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps. He's won eight gold at this olympics in swimming (he's now the Olympian that has won more gold at any Olympic ever). And at the last Olypics he won six gold (at a total of 14 Gold medals he's holds the most gold of any Olympian ever).

Aussies are mad for swimming. And we love our Olympians -- all of them -- but especially our swimmers. Our woman's team has done incredibly well. Many brilliant swims. Amongst other races the Australian women's team in 4 X 200 metre freestyle blitzed the race. It was an incredible race. And our swimmers and the swimming teams who won the silver and bronze all beat the world record. It was some race.

I put our love of swimming down to the fact we are the world's largest island (or smallest continent, in land mass we are nearly the same size as the U.S although we have only about 1/10th population of the U.S.) and most of our population is found on our coastal areas. So swimming is a prominent sport.

That and the fact that Australia was colonized as a penal colony (and also as a strategic place to stop dominance of Spain in the Pacific)...well I whimsically think that all those convicts learned to love the water because they hoped to swim home to Britain day, LOL. There was no other way of getting off this big island if you were a convict.