What to bring to a POTS appointment
A checklist of the data, paperwork and questions that make a specialist appointment go well — written from the patient side of the desk.
Reviewed 2026-05-15 · 5 min read
The short list
- A symptom log covering at least the last 4-6 weeks. Patterns are what the specialist needs, not a single bad day.
- A list of your medications — including over-the-counter ones, supplements, salt loading, and how consistently you take them.
- Any standing-test numbers you have done at home, with dates and conditions (fasting? recent meal? after exercise?).
- A short list of your top three questions, written down. POTS appointments are short and you will think of the questions on the bus home if you don't.
- A friend or family member if you can manage it, especially if brain fog is one of your symptoms. Two pairs of ears is much better than one.
Why a clean PDF beats a phone full of screenshots
Specialists have 15-30 minutes per appointment in most NHS clinics and similar in private. The clinician needs to read a pattern, not forensic-scroll a camera roll. A single tidy printout — even one A4 page summarising symptom frequency, the worst sessions, and your standing-test deltas — is worth dramatically more clinic minutes than the same data scattered across forty screenshots.
PotsTrack's PDF export is built to fit on a page. Anything else that does the same job is fine too.
Questions worth asking
- What pattern do you see in what I've brought? (Make them tell you, in their own words — that's the answer that gets written in the notes.)
- What would change your mind? (i.e. what would push you toward considering a different diagnosis.)
- What is the plan if I get worse? (Specifically: when to ring, and who.)
- What should I be tracking that I'm not?