Documented: May 2024
My name is Madi Caldwell, and I am a twenty-two-year-old student-athlete who was diagnosed with POTS four months prior to writing this letter. I have had the privilege of being an athlete my entire life, and up until I started college, I had always been incredibly healthy. I began playing collegiate lacrosse in the summer of 2020, the height of the pandemic. A few weeks into my first season, I began having extensive gastrointestinal issues. I was in and out of the emergency room, scheduling a multitude of visits with various specialists and general practitioners, desperate to figure out what was going on with my body. I was 18 years old and had been subjected to countless MRIs, CT scans, Hida scans, colonoscopies, and endoscopies; neither the tests nor the doctors could give me any answers. During the summer of 2021, I lost nearly 25 pounds and was on three different medications that did not seem to be touching my symptoms. I remember breaking down in my pediatrician's office at 19 years old with my mother. We weren’t getting answers and were just more confused and hopeless.
Playing a sport for the NCAA during COVID was an entirely different kind of beast. My team was getting tested up to five times a week, being contact-traced often, and forced into hybrid or fully online classes. There was only one way around all of these obstacles, which was receiving the COVID vaccine. I was incredibly apprehensive about subjecting myself to a vaccine that was made and released so quickly. However, the thought of being able to attend my own away games and not be tested almost every day was enticing enough for me to ignore my doubts. After my second dose of the vaccination, my symptoms had become much worse. I had just begun my junior season and hit rock bottom. I would have episodes on the field that resembled a panic attack. When I ran, I felt like I was going to faint. Most mornings, it took all of my energy to simply get out of bed, and no amount of caffeine could touch my fatigue. My athletic trainer was very concerned at this point and sent me to my campus health center. My symptoms were dismissed and passed off as athletically induced asthma, and I was given an albuterol inhaler. I used the inhaler religiously in hopes of it relieving my symptoms with no avail. I played through my season to the best of my ability, but I was at my lowest point, both mentally and physically.
At the end of each school year, my university’s athletic trainers administer a mass amount of physical exams to all of the student-athletes for the upcoming fall. I attended with all of my teammates, expecting nothing out of the ordinary. It was just a regular physical like I had done a hundred times before. After completing all the other stations, it was my turn with the doctor. When he checked my heart, he told me that it sounded irregular. I thought he was insane, we were in a packed gym, full of students, trainers, and coaches all having loud conversations, there was simply no way he could hear well enough to notice something like that. I was then taken to a separate room with three additional doctors attempting to hear the same irregularity as the first doctor. I was told to see a cardiologist as soon as possible and to complete no vigorous exercise until I did so. I went back home to Virginia for the summer and saw my first cardiologist. I was told I had very slight mitral valve prolapse and that it was nothing to be concerned about. I returned back to my campus in Charlotte, NC, for my senior season that August, eager to get back on the field. I was utterly disappointed when I couldn’t make it through a practice without passing out. My roommates were always on edge as I started to pass out regularly during daily activities. My best friend once had to break into the bathroom because I passed out in the shower. It was evident that something was wrong, so I visited another cardiologist in Charlotte. This was when I finally began to receive answers. He diagnosed me with POTS, and I was told that I could not play lacrosse anymore. I didn’t know how to feel. I was devastated my sport was taken from me so soon, but relieved that I finally had a diagnosis.
The first option provided to me to treat my dysauntomnia was blood pressure medication. I knew that I did not want to be dependent on yet another medication. I wanted to treat my condition holistically. I tried physical therapy over winter break in 2023, and I finally started seeing some progress. I then began my final semester of college, and sitting on the sidelines watching my team was the only way to keep my symptoms manageable. My mom then found Better Brain & Body through some research. This office was truly a gift from God. We have no place that specializes in the treatment of dysautonomia in my area of rural Virginia. To find Dr. Brown in my last few months in Charlotte was revolutionary in how I would live the rest of my life. During my first visit, Dr. Brown asked me if I had ever experienced any gastrointestinal issues along with my other symptoms. My heart simply stopped. For so long, I thought there were a multitude of different things wrong with me. I had been diagnosed with so many different conditions over the past three years that I just felt broken. Dr. Brown telling me that it was all connected and all of my symptoms could be treated gave me more hope than I have had in a long time. My treatment at Better Brain & Body allowed me to play in my senior game with no episodes or symptoms. To this point, my symptoms have been reduced little to none and I feel like I have my old life back. I will graduate from college feeling whole and healthy, moving on to my next chapter of life without worrying about whether or not I can remain conscious. I could not possibly be more thankful for the revolutionary work done at Better Brain & Body, and I am excited to see what they accomplish in the future.
Madi C.