Living with POTS
Take care of your body.
Sam keeps your heart rate, sleep and symptoms in one place. You take the history to your next appointment.
Step by step: what POTS is, what is measured on standing and where it is felt.
POTS
POTS is a form of orthostatic intolerance: on standing up, the heart rate rises more than usual and symptoms such as lightheadedness and palpitations appear. Lying down usually eases them.
A standing human figure, seen from the front at an angle. The view moves slowly towards the upper body. Nothing is highlighted.
On standing
In a stand or tilt test, an adult's heart rate rises 30 bpm or more within 10 minutes and stays up, without a marked drop in blood pressure. Research discusses several mechanisms, including blood pooling in the legs on standing.
Example of a test with a doctor, not your data
Head / Chest area
The upper body, seen from the front. Soft violet areas appear on the head and the chest, marking where lightheadedness and palpitations are felt. The chest area throbs like a fast heartbeat; nothing flashes.
Day to day
Many people also report fatigue, trouble concentrating and reduced exercise tolerance. Which symptoms appear differs from person to person. A fast heart rate on standing can also have other causes, such as fluid loss or medication.
Worth discussing with your doctor.
New or severe symptoms need a doctor. Chest pain, fainting or sudden breathlessness: call emergency services.
The view pulls back to the whole standing figure. The soft violet areas on the head and chest stay; the chest keeps throbbing.
Own simplified illustration based on the sources above.
The picture shows a standing reference body without organs; lying and standing appear only in the sketch. The coloured areas on the head and chest mark where lightheadedness and palpitations are felt; they show neither a cause nor a measurement. The area on the chest throbs like a fast heartbeat; the tempo is an example, not a measured rate. Blood pooling in the legs is named in the text only and not drawn. Fatigue, trouble concentrating and reduced exercise tolerance are not painted. The sketch is a drawn example of a stand test, not a measurement: it has no scale, and the blood-pressure line is drawn flat for simplicity. Adult male reference model; figure and sketch are not to scale.
What Sam keeps for you
For people living with POTS who want a record for their appointments. Sam is not a medical device. It keeps what you and your wearable already produce and puts it in one place.
Your Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop or Garmin already records them, and you add what you log. Sam reads them from Apple Health and shows you how they shift against your personal baseline.
Check in on most days, and once a month it becomes a PDF for your appointment.
A stand test belongs with your doctor. Sam shows your heart rate against your personal baseline, never as a POTS test.
Sam reads the data your wearable already writes to Apple Health and compares it to your personal baseline - understandable, not a wall of numbers.
With POTS, heart rate swings through the day. Sam shows resting heart rate, HRV and sleep over weeks, next to your own average.
You see sleep, stress level and heart rate side by side over the weeks, and bring your observations to your appointment.
The free monthly report shows trends from your everyday life as a PDF. POTS is easier to explain with a trend than with memory.
Sam is a wellness companion, not a medical device. The app does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness and does not replace medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical decisions.
Sam shows your values next to your entries. What they mean is something to talk through with your doctor.
You ask a question, Sam answers with your own numbers. For example:
The monthly report sums up your weeks - for appointments, applications, or simply your own record.
Monthly Report - June
Your Health Overview
Sleep
Health status
Example values. Your report is based on your own data.
Further reading: what wearable data can show about everyday life with POTS - and where its limits are.
POTS often occurs alongside Long COVID, ME/CFS, and hypermobility disorders, but each is a separate diagnosis. The exact combination determines whether structured exercise helps or harms you.
See how your pulse responds when you stand up, using Apple Watch, learn which values are worth bringing to your doctor, and see how Sam makes your daily heart rate, sleep, and activity data easier to understand.
Structured exercise programs, increased salt and fluid intake, and compression clothing are evidence-based first-line treatments for POTS. Here's what that means and how it differs from PEM.
POTS is defined by your heart rate response when you stand up. What the Schellong test and NASA Lean test measure, which heart rate values count as indicators, and what a wearable can actually tell you.
No. Diagnosis belongs in the hands of a doctor - typically using a stand test or tilt table test. Sam shows you long-term trends in your wearable data.
Sam reads data like resting heart rate, HRV, sleep, and activity from Apple Health and compares them with your personal baseline from recent weeks. Sam shows your heart rate over the day and against your baseline, but not whether you were lying down or standing at the time. A stand test belongs with your doctor.
Sam shows the data your wearable records, whatever medication you take. Keep in mind that medications can affect heart rate and HRV. Your baseline reflects you as you currently are; any changes to your treatment should be discussed with your doctor.
A racing heart (tachycardia) on standing is the core symptom, often accompanied by dizziness, lightheadedness, heart palpitations, headaches, nausea, brain fog (trouble concentrating), heat intolerance, and pronounced fatigue. How severe the symptoms are and which ones show up varies a lot from person to person - whether it's actually POTS is something only a doctor can determine.
Sam reads Apple Health and works with the Apple Watch and with other wearables that save their data there, such as Oura, Whoop or Garmin, paired with an iPhone. Which values arrive depends on the device. A stand test belongs with your doctor, whatever watch you wear.
Whether and how you can work or exercise with POTS is highly individual - it depends on severity, any co-occurring conditions and your personal situation. Plan it with your care team; more in the article 'Living with POTS'.
Yes. You log your symptom days yourself, and Sam adds heart rate, resting heart rate, HRV, sleep duration and stress level. For heart rate on standing, keep to whatever measurement your care team asked for; Sam records your course over the weeks.
Download Sam for free, connect Apple Health, and see what your data says about everyday life with POTS - compared to your own baseline.
Sam is a wellness companion, not a medical device. Sam does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness and does not replace medical advice. For health questions or concerns, always consult a qualified medical professional.