Hi, I'm Molly.
I recovered from severe POTS. This is what that actually looked like — and why I built POTS Recovery Club.
Founder
Molly · Founder
Hi, I'm Molly.
I spent years being told that rest was the answer. It wasn't. Once I understood what was actually happening in my nervous system, I rebuilt through gradual reconditioning — paced exercise, sodium, breathwork, and consistency. It worked.
POTS Recovery Club is the community I wish had existed when I was at my worst.
What recovery actually looked like.
At my worst, I couldn't shower without my heart rate spiking to 150. I couldn't stand long enough to make food. I spent most of my time horizontal, being told by doctors that rest was the only option, that my body needed time, that I should wait and see.
The problem with waiting is that it doesn't work. Rest brings you back to your baseline. It doesn't raise it. Every POTS-specialist center that has studied this — Vanderbilt, Mayo, Cleveland Clinic — includes graduated exercise as a core part of their protocol. Not because exercise is easy with POTS. Because rest alone allows deconditioning to set in, and deconditioning makes every symptom worse.
When I finally understood what was actually happening in my body, everything changed. POTS is a nervous system regulation problem. The blood pools. The heart rate compensates. The brain doesn't get enough flow. The fix isn't rest — it's teaching your nervous system, slowly and safely, that upright is okay. So I started. My first reconditioning session was five minutes of ankle pumps lying in my bed.
I did it the next day. And the day after that. Six months later I was walking for forty minutes. A year after that I went to a concert and stood for three hours and didn't think about my heart rate once.
POTS Recovery Club is the community I wish had existed when I was at my worst. Not a clinic. Not a one-size-fits-all program. A place built by someone who has actually been through it, for people who are ready to stop waiting and start rebuilding.
"The five-minute walk is not a failure. It's the beginning."
What the journey actually looked like.
This is approximate — everyone's timeline is different. This is mine.
Month 0-2
Mostly horizontal
Ankle pumps and breathing in bed. Two minutes seated at the edge. Learning that showing up in any form counts.
Month 3-4
Starting to sit upright
Seated exercises daily. Five-minute walks on good days. The boom and bust cycle starting to loosen.
Month 5-7
Short walks outside
Ten to twenty minutes, flat surfaces, slow pace. Resting after every session. Progress feeling real for the first time.
Month 8-12
Rebuilding consistency
Three sessions a week. Standing for longer. Bad days still happening but recovering faster from them.
Year 2 onwards
Living again
Walking forty minutes. Attending events. Not thinking about heart rate constantly. What I now consider recovered.
You shouldn't have to figure this out alone.
When I was at my worst, I had no community. I had Reddit threads, contradictory information, and doctors who had never seen someone actually recover. I had no framework, no protocol, and no one to tell me that what I was doing was right or wrong.
POTS Recovery Club exists because that experience was unnecessarily hard. The science exists. The protocols work. The only missing piece was a place where people could access them — with support, with community, and with someone who has actually been through it.
This is not a clinic. I'm not a doctor. I'm someone who recovered, who built a system around what worked, and who wants to make the path clearer for everyone who comes after.