Caroline Muir Foundation

Hi! My name is Caroline and I am a 14 year old girl trying to make a difference in this wonderful world! I am writing this letter in hopes that you all will share my passion to change this world for the better. I am also writing this to help spread awareness for Dysautonomic diseases. Last year, I started the school year as a healthy and happy girl, little did I know that 2015 would be the year that turned my life upsidedown. In Febuary, I got sick with a stomach virus. My regular doctors office told my mom that there was a virus going around and that I should be good as new in 2 weeks. Well, the 2 week marker was long gone and I was still feeling terrible. I had severe stomach pain, severe fatigue, nausea, and a loss of appetite. We then scheduled appointments with a GI doctor who ordered tons of tests like blood tests, sonograms, X-Rays, an endoscope, a colonscope, and worst of all, a barryium test. After she gave me a clean bill of GI health, we went to the next doctor, and then the next, and so on. After months of searching a friend of  my moms reccomended that I get tested for POTS, which stands for Postural Othostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. I finally recieved the tilt-table test in late November and it was then clear that I had a very severe case of POTS disease. POTS is not a rare disease but it goes unnoticed very easily. Some people have a light case of it, and others, like me, have a severe case of it. a severe case means that some people are in wheelchairs because of it, or like me, some get winded by climbing the stairs, or have so much pain that they cant sleep even though they are so tired. POTS patients aren't making these things up, there are reasons for it. I was shocked by how many doctors know nothing about it or don't understand it. I want to make sure that every POTS or Dysautonomic patient gets the right care, as well as make life a little easier by introducing people to this illness. So I ask all of you to lend a helping hand to people like me, the people that need a little TLC. I ask you to help me raise this issue so we don't go through these difficult times alone! Help me make a difference and help make the world a better place, because only you have the power to do this!!