P.S.
@Gingergrrl - All of my best friends have always been red heads...no joke! I was pleased when 23&Me let me know I'm a carrier!
I'm not a red-head and was talking about my Ginger doggie
I should have clarified...there haven't been formal published studies examining sleep problems in POTS, an area that has and is being studied in ME/CFS.
I agree and think this is absurd. When I first developed POTS in Jan 2013 (post-viral), my HR was going into the 160's and 170's while I was sleeping. It was happening every few hours and I was literally unable to get any sleep. Each time it woke me up (and my husband measured it on a HR watch at the time), I would be gasping for air and my arms and hands would be numb and I could barely speak b/c I was so short of breath and confused.
It felt as if someone was squeezing my heart and I would have chest pain for days. I saw a Cardio and begged for a sleep study but she said no. I was finally put on Metoprolol (and later switched to Atenolol) which controlled the very high tachycardia. By the time I was approved for a sleep study, the doctor of the sleep clinic told me to take the beta blocker during the study but I knew it would never capture an episode if I did. But he said he could not be responsible and if my HR went dangerously high they would have to stop the study and take me to the ER (which was ridiculous b/c I had already been to the ER gasping for air with chest pain in 2013 and it was beyond USELESS).
I finally had the sleep study, and was basically forced to take the BB, but it really did not matter b/c I couldn't fall asleep with all the electrodes on my head and body in the sleep lab. Once they ruled out sleep apnea, they said I was "fine". Soon after that, the insane tachycardia episodes in my sleep morphed into episodes when I was standing/walking and then stayed that way. But still no one had diagnosed me with POTS or told me what to do beyond taking a beta blocker.
By early 2014, I had to end my career b/c I could no longer walk from my car to my office or climb the stairs to my office. I really think it could have played out differently in retrospect but I was so ignorant what was happening to me at that time and had a PCP that completely missed that I had both POTS and Hashimoto's at that time and could only recommend "counseling". Fast forward four years and we now know I have Autoimmune POTS & MCAS (which very frequently go together) and so much more information is known.
I think so too as a number of cardiac problems involve the autonomic nervous system--like Afib--which I have. The head of the heart failure unit at Vanderbilt said that she also agreed that the autonomic nervous system was involved in heart rhythm problems.
I agree and don't understand how they actually could NOT be connected!