ABOUT THIS EPISODE
🎒 Back-to-school season brings changing routines, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative & Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.
Back-to-School 2026:
https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/
In this Made for Health minisode, Dr. Aaron Hartman continues exploring an important question: Why are you still sick? Why does your body seem unable to get back into a healing state?
This time, he focuses on dysautonomia and POTS—Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome—conditions involving dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system, which helps regulate processes such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, digestion, sleep, and the body's response to stress. Pasted text
For some people, the signs are dramatic. For others, they can be subtle: feeling lightheaded when standing, experiencing a racing or pounding heart seemingly out of nowhere, waking suddenly at night, struggling with brain fog, cold hands and feet, unusual skin color changes, temperature intolerance, or simply feeling significantly better after fluids, electrolytes, compression, or time spent calming the nervous system. Pasted text
Dr. Hartman explains why dysautonomia can easily become one more overlooked layer in complex chronic illness—and why identifying what originally disrupted the nervous system may be just as important as identifying POTS itself.
Key Topics Covered
- What dysautonomia means
- What POTS is and how it relates to dysautonomia
- The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
- Lightheadedness and dizziness after standing
- Heart racing and unexplained palpitations
- Brain fog and difficulty thinking
- Waking at night with a racing heart
- Cold hands and feet
- Changes in skin color and circulation
- Problems regulating body temperature
- Sleep, mood, hormonal, and gastrointestinal symptoms
- Why mild dysautonomia may be overlooked
- Fluids and electrolytes
- Compression garments
- Nervous-system regulation
- Dysautonomia after concussion or head injury
- Long COVID and post-infectious dysautonomia
- Lyme disease and nervous-system dysfunction
- Hypermobility and POTS
- Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
- Autoimmune and gastrointestinal overlap
- Why the patient's history can guide treatment
- The NASA Lean Test
- Physical examination findings Dr. Hartman considers
- Why treating the underlying trigger matters
In This Episode, You Will Learn
✅ Why POTS is only one form within the broader category of dysautonomia
✅ How autonomic nervous-system dysfunction can affect much more than heart rate and blood pressure
✅ Why symptoms may sometimes resemble anxiety or panic
✅ Why someone can have significant autonomic symptoms without fitting a textbook presentation
✅ How POTS and dysautonomia may overlap with hypermobility, mast-cell activation, mold illness, Lyme disease, autoimmune issues, gut problems, and post-infectious conditions
✅ Why Dr. Hartman asks when the symptoms started and what happened around that time
✅ How concussion, illness, trauma, infection, or other physiological stressors may become part of the clinical timeline
✅ Why fluids, electrolytes, compression, strengthening, and nervous-system regulation may become part of an individualized approach
✅ How the NASA Lean Test can help collect heart-rate and blood-pressure information over time
Resources & Links:
🌐 Dr. Aaron Hartman – Richmond Functional Medicine: richmondfunctionalmedicine.com
🌐 LinkedIn – Dr. Aaron Hartman: Connect Here
📺 YouTube – Richmond Functional Medicine: Watch Here
🎒 Back-to-School 2026: Back-to-School Bundle
Mentioned in this episode:
25% Off Back to School Support for Parents
Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC. For a limited time, save 25% on the Back to School Support Bundle. Visit the link below ⬇️ Shop the Back to School Sale
Back to School Support for Parents
25% Off Back to School Support for Parents
Back to school asks a lot of parents, too. Support your body through the season with three physician-reviewed, foundation-first essentials: Twice Daily Multi, Quercetin + Nettles, and NAC. For a limited time, save 25% on the Back to School Support Bundle. Visit the link below ⬇️ Shop the Back to School Sale
