Diana Driscoll, former POTS Patient & Creator of POTS Care Package™
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– Dr. Diana Driscoll, Optometrist and former POTS Patient & Creator of POTS Care Package™
A Leader in POTS Research and Patient Advocacy
The Driscoll Approach™
Dr. Driscoll is an optometrist, a recovered POTS patient, and leading expert in autonomic dysfunction and POTS. Her research through Genetic Disease Investigators, revealed abnormal inflammation involving the cardiovascular system in many patients. Treating POTS by first exploring this inflammation is a dramatic departure from the traditional treatment of POTS. Now deemed The Driscoll Approach™, patients reach out to her and her team from around the world for help.
This package is one way to help more people than can come to the clinic for one-on-one care.
See Dr. Driscoll’s CV to review her research, publications, and study results. Her mission to help others with a condition that disabled her for over a decade is a personal one. She continues to push others to recognize this significant medical illness and the suffering that results. Fortunately, there are answers, help, and hope for all sufferers.
Diana Driscoll, former POTS Patient & Creator of POTS Care Package™
Published in 2012, “The Driscoll Theory®” challenged the mistaken idea that EDS & POTS patients suffer from an intractable, inevitable disease. Traditional treatments prioritized symptom management, believing full recovery to be impossible.
Dr. Driscoll and four co-authors found the opposite: Symptoms of EDS & POTS could be traced to underlying medical conditions. Each underlying cause could be treated, meaning that a sustainable path to recovery was possible.
“The Driscoll Theory®” signaled a paradigm shift in EDS & POTS research, and its evaluation and treatment principles are at the core of POTS Care Package™.
Funded clinical trials to identify physiological and neurological signs of EDS/POTS, and role of inflammation in dysautonomia.
Awarded four patents to date for the novel treatment of autonomic dysfunction and vascular diseases.
Internationally recognized patient advocate for those with “invisible illnesses” including POTS, EDS, and Long-Haulers.
In 2004, Dr. Driscoll traveled to Costa Rica with a small missionary group. A week after landing, she contracted a virus and was forced to return home. Symptoms showed within a month and soon became frequent and debilitating.
In early 2005, Dr. Driscoll was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME), and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS).
Just six months later, Dr. Driscoll was declared disabled. Extreme fatigue, headaches, and gastroparesis left her bed-ridden, and she was forced to stop practicing therapeutic optometry.
Over the coming years, Dr. Driscoll saw over 50 physicians across the United States, including recognized experts in autonomic dysfunction. She participated in three clinical trials, but still with no results.
Dr. Driscoll was unresponsive to traditional treatments, just like millions of POTS patients worldwide. Her physicians refused to recognize POTS as anything but an incurable disease. POTS, they said, could not be traced to underlying medical conditions or causes. According to medical professionals, there was no cure.
Dr. Driscoll turned to research. Working from her bed, she spent the next five years creating the intellectual foundation for a radically new understanding of POTS.
In 2011, Dr. Driscoll formalized her research processes.
She raised money for clinical trials, produced peer-reviewed abstracts, and campaigned for her theory, speaking to groups across the country.
In “The Driscoll Theory®,” Dr. Driscoll revealed a propensity for high intracranial pressure in POTS patients with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). That sounds obscure, but its implication shook the POTS and EDS community.
Although high intracranial pressure did not affect every patient, Dr. Driscoll had successfully shown a causal link between POTS and an underlying medical condition.
Dr. Driscoll’s research resulted in the discovery that vagus nerve function was affected in many patients.
In 2015, Dr. Driscoll was awarded a U.S. patent for the creation of a novel treatment for this aspect of autonomic dysfunction.
Unlike other treatments, Dr. Driscoll’s patented supplement corrects this aspect of autonomic dysfunction through targeted support of the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve is an important but often overlooked regulator of heart rate, gastrointestinal function, blood pressure, and sweat production. Importantly, it is the anti-inflammatory nerve of the body. Her discovery began to change lives immediately.
Dr. Driscoll founded POTS Care® clinic in 2015 – the first and only clinic dedicated to treating the underlying medical causes of POTS.
Together with her team, she has treated hundreds of patients, and her success has validated her theories and treatment practices, now known as The Driscoll Approach™.
As POTS Care® clinic grows, so does the waitlist. Patients are scheduled months in advance. Meanwhile, many POTS sufferers are confronted with the same treatments that manage symptoms but fail to address the causes. Long-COVID patients diagnosed with POTS face the same dismal path.
This is a problem. POTS Care Package™ is our answer.
– Dr. Diana Driscoll