Patient
What an amazing difference with Dr Astina and the new staff compared to before! I've had POTS for decades and decades before covid came along and finally everybody knew what POTS was! Woot! Unfortunate that there are so many new patients now after covid, but there is one "bright" side, that it was the catalyst that put POTS on the map, literally. There are much more individualized Treatments available now that never were before, along with proper testing and diagnostics more readily and quickly available now. Not just proper medications according to each individual's needs, but Dr Astina went farther than anybody has ever done and put in a referral for physical therapy for overall conditioning after a thorough discussion of my needs, and not just one body part like usual with EDS. Looking forward to that! He had even heard of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome which always knocks me off my feet when somebody knows what that is! (It's rarely diagnosed, but I think a lot more common than was originally stated asone in 20,000... I would guess one in 2000!) Fortunately for the ones of us battling POTS lifelong that have been left in the dark for most of our lives due to the simple lack of training in medical schools, that has now finally changed! :) I am happy to report this is no longer the case, and the hundreds if not thousands of thousands of patients that have been battling this disease both long-term and recently since the pandemic, now have much better hope with doctors that do not call you "illogical and irrational" (!), like they did at Sutter... Not my HEART or my TESTS... Nope!! He called ME that!! What question mark how is that scientific or professional? SMH That "old school good old boys club" where doctors liked to elevate themselves to omnipotent status and classify patients as less than, and love to claim anything they don't know is "all in the patient's head", is over! Yay! That older generation of doctors that are mostly retired now were never trained in these new chronic illnesses (fibro, anyone?), and were frankly at the end of their rope and ready to retire, much the same as our current leader, it used to all be about politics and zero about well-being. Not now! From the assistant that took my initial EKG and completely understood what orthostatic vitals are for once, and then actually performed them, to Dr Astina who listened with compassion and complete understanding to everything I said, which was as usual basically making a medical presentation, instead of your regular "doctor and patient answer and interview" procedure. (You do this thousands of times with thousands of providers over the decades, and you start wanting to simply make a video to show them!) I have to wonder how many patients have uttered the following sentence straight to a cardiologist they just met? "I know when I am in cardiogenic shock, and then I put myself into the Trendelenburg position and use my breathing tricks for life-saving CPR"?? I'm willing to bet just one of them and that would be me. It was such a refreshing change for somebody with my extensive background to talk to him basically as a peer and not a superior like the old school guys did, and get right to the point with limited time and resources most medical systems are facing today. After decades of being turned away by incompetent providers without education, I no longer have time to spare on people saying "I have no clue what you are talking about". I am definitely hoping to share this news with the many thousands of voiceless victims of POTS, but I also don't want to get my new cardiologist overrun with patients, and then I can't be seen hahaha. I think I will let this review be good enough... He's our guy for Northern California. I don't want everybody flocking here from everywhere and preventing me from getting appointments now that I found him! Thank you to Dr Astina for such a refreshing change and open doors where I've had them shut in my face way too often before.