Help Tif With Heart Condition Treatment

Hi, I'm Tiffni Wegmann, but you can just call  me Tif. 

I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. I'll explain what that is below.

My life has been severely impacted by this illness. Through my 20s, I was successful in my career, and by my late 20s had started a job on the other side of the US. I was extremely independent, and doing very well, all through my adult life, until in about September 2015. Everything went down hill from there, and within 6 months, I had lost all my muscle mass, my car, my apartment, my job, and my life. I was completely bed ridden and had to move back across the country so that my parents could care for me.

Most of the people who see this, likely already know me and know about my condition. But for anyone who doesn't know me, or for some of my newer friends who haven' yet gotten all the details on my illness, I have something called "Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome." It's typically shortened down into just "POTS." When I received my diagnosis, my sister said, "hey better than the PITS!" That is still yet to be determined, haha.

Usually, I just tell people it's a heart condition. I was diagnosed by a cardiologist, and my current treating specialist is also a cardiologist. It is mostly treated by cardiologists and endocrinologists because the treatments and symptoms related most closely to those type of doctors.

It is a lot more than just my heart though. Yes, I struggle with tachycardia (or heart rate), as well as low blood pressure, but POTS is actually a form of dysautonomia. And dysautonomia is kind of a blanket term for these types of issuesl.. In a nut shell, my entire autonomic nervous system is out of whack. It does not react properly, which causes tachycardia when upright (even just sitting up right,) problems with severely low blood pressure that make it impossible to function for the day. 

Keep in mind, I got sick in Sept 2015.... but I went undiagnosed for over 3 years. I was finally diagnosed in October of 2018 by a rhythm specialist cardiologist. He put me on a beta blocker which finally made it so I could be upright for more than 2 minutes at a time. I could do 10, to almost 20 sometimes. The doctor didn't give me anything else to go off of aside from eating lots of sodium and wearing compression socks. For 3-4 months, things seemed to be going well. But then I ended up relapsing. Despite being on a beta blocker, I relapsed and felt even worse than I  did when I first got sick.

Several more months passed of me being bed ridden again, until finally, on April 29, 2020, I was able to find an actuaspecialist within driving distance. He has helped me a great deal. But it's very slow going. Steady, but very slow. I have found that my mental and social energy has also been improving much faster than my physical condition, which has made recovery even more difficult because my mind is ready to live life, but my body is not.

A good friend of mine found the Treatment Center in Dallas, TX and has been pushing me to go for it for a while. Me, being me, put it off. I figured it was too good to be true, and even if the stats were real, how could I ever afford it? I rely completely on my parents. I have been denied for medicaid and social security more time than I can remember. Yes I have an attorney on it, but it could take up to 10 more months for anything to come of that. At this point I am 100% reliant on my friends and my family to get me through medical bills and to try to keep me as happy and healthy as possible in my current situation.

Finally, after my friend told my parents about the treatment center, and I mentioned it to a few friends, I was ultimately talked into doing it. You can view said website with all statistic, success rates, treatment plans, etc (you can also find testimonials on YouTube) https://www.potstreatmentcenter.com/

The "accelerated treatment" is 2 weeks straight of 3 hour treatments per day. This should give me a good boost in progress. From there, I will start "phase 2" which will be more about lifestyle changes and such (a lot of which I've already been doing for my current specialist." And eventually the goal is to get me to be as normal as possible, not have to be on meds, and use my own body and new lifestyle to keep everything in check. But worst case scenario, I may only need to stay on 1 or 2, instead of the plethora I am on now.
 
This illness stole my past away from me, and has been preventing me from having a real future. I got sick at 29, and am still sick at 34. My mom had to quit her job in order to care for me full time. And my 74 year old dad has told me that he will keep working until he dies if he has to, to make sure I'm taken care of. But I would like to find a way to be independent. To be able to take care of myself on my own as best as I can without being completely at the mercy of others. I would also very much like to be able to let my father retire.

With the help of The Dallas Treatment Center there is a chance I will be able to lift some of the burden off my parents a little faster. And there is a chance that I will regain some semblance of real life sooner than later. 

The treatment center was able to make portable versions of all of their equipment so that people who struggle with traveling like I do are able to do everything from home. I will be working closely over video and computer linked to the equipment with one of 5 different specialists for 3 hours everyday. They will be covering all aspects of my illness from pain, to insomnia, heart, blood pressure, blood flow, exercise, and even diet. It is extremely comprehensive, even remotely. And even after the treatment is over, I will have access to these specialists and be able to keep all of the equipment in the event I need something more. All that being said, it's very expensive. $7500 total.

Fortunately, my parents were able to scrape enough together to float the cost of the treatment on a couple of credit cards. They told me not to worry about trying to recoup any money, but they have spent so much on me, and I know they will be paying this off for a while, and it will keep my dad from retiring even longer. So even if I can't recover the entire amount they've spent, any amount I can return to them would be amazing. Obviously, the faster it's paid off, the less interest. But the plan is set in motion so any amount over any period of time is awesome.

My treatment starts Nov 3 (sorry to Out Of This World fans, we will not be having episodes for 2 weeks during my treatment!) 

Thank you for reading. Thank you even more if you donate. 

I will do my best to keep everyone updated on my treatments and how they're going.

<3Tif