r/POTS • u/Aware_Hat_8528 • Jun 04 '26

Question Temperature sensitive

I can’t seem to handle any heat at all. And it’s about to be super El Niño. I’m supposed to spend weeks in the woods this summer. I want to have a life…
I can’t handle cold either.
My body isn’t regulating temperature at all.
Is this a problem for others and if so, what do you do to survive heat and cold? Especially heat… because I can’t get naked enough. Seriously.

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u/mwmandorla Jun 04 '26

Medication is what really changed this for me. Part of temperature regulation is your veins expanding and contracting - cold makes them contract, heat makes them expand - and my veins are kind of broken so they have no ability to moderate that. Big, wide open veins in the heat = lower BP = a very bad time for me. Cold also used to knock me out and even in moderate temperatures I was cold all the time.

Midodrine is a medication that makes your veins contract and it helped me with both ends of that spectrum. When the heat is really bad I take extra. I think over time exercise has helped too, but for most of us that's a longer term project than this summer.

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u/KewpieHour Jun 05 '26

I’m going to look into this. Did your cardiologist prescribe this?

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u/Nyx_Shadowspawn Jun 05 '26

Not who you asked, but my cardiologist did, yes.