If you’ve been told Dysautonomia is just a fancy word for feeling dizzy when you stand up, you’ve been undersold on what this condition actually involves.

And if you’ve assumed Dysautonomia and POTS are the same thing, you’re not alone, but that assumption leaves a lot of people without the right answers for a long time.

At Nexus Neuro in Carmel, Indiana, we work with patients across the Indianapolis metro who have spent months or years being told their symptoms are anxiety, aging, or something they just need to manage. The reality is usually more specific, more treatable, and more connected than they’ve been led to believe.

POTS Is One Form of Dysautonomia. Not the Whole Picture.

Dysautonomia refers to dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, the branch of your nervous system responsible for regulating the functions your body handles automatically. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Digestion. Temperature. Breathing. These are all autonomic functions, and when the system breaks down, the symptoms show up across every one of them.

POTS, or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, is one of the most recognized forms of Dysautonomia. But the umbrella is much wider than that. Neurocardiogenic syncope, multiple system atrophy, pure autonomic failure, and other subtypes each present differently, progress differently, and require different approaches to care. Treating them all as POTS, or treating POTS as the whole of Dysautonomia, leads to incomplete care and a lot of frustrated patients.

The right approach starts with identifying exactly what you’re dealing with.

9 Symptoms That Point to Autonomic Dysfunction

One of the most disorienting things about Dysautonomia is that the symptoms seem unrelated. Patients often come in with a long, scattered list that’s been attributed to multiple different causes, when in reality, everything on that list traces back to one thing: a nervous system that has lost its ability to regulate properly.

Here are nine of the most common symptoms we see:

1. Dizziness The most recognized symptom, but far from the only one. Dizziness with Dysautonomia is often positional, worsening when standing or changing positions, and tied to blood pressure and heart rate dysregulation rather than inner ear issues.

2. Brain Fog Difficulty concentrating, slow processing, and a persistent mental cloudiness are hallmark features of autonomic dysfunction. Reduced cerebral blood flow plays a significant role. When your cardiovascular regulation is off, your brain often feels it first.

3. Fatigue Not ordinary tiredness. Dysautonomia fatigue is the kind that doesn’t resolve with rest and can be debilitating even on days with minimal exertion. The nervous system is working overtime just to maintain basic regulation, leaving little energy for anything else.

4. Rapid Heart Rate and Palpitations A racing or pounding heart, especially with position changes, mild activity, or even at rest, is one of the defining features of many Dysautonomia subtypes. The heart isn’t the problem. The autonomic signals controlling it are.

5. Nausea The vagus nerve plays a central role in both autonomic function and digestion. When autonomic regulation breaks down, nausea is a predictable result, often unpredictable in timing and unrelated to what you’ve eaten.

6. GI Dysregulation Beyond nausea, patients frequently experience bloating, delayed gastric emptying, constipation, diarrhea, or a combination. Gastroparesis and other GI motility issues are directly tied to autonomic nervous system dysfunction and are commonly overlooked as part of the broader picture.

7. Temperature Dysregulation Feeling too hot, too cold, or unable to regulate body temperature in response to the environment is a sign that the autonomic system’s thermoregulatory function is impaired. This is especially common in POTS and pure autonomic failure.

8. Headaches Chronic headaches and migraines are frequently reported in Dysautonomia patients. Fluctuations in cerebral blood flow and intracranial pressure regulation, both autonomically controlled, contribute to headache patterns that don’t respond well to standard migraine treatments.

9. Vision Changes Blurring, light sensitivity, visual tracking difficulties, and tunnel vision can all occur as a result of autonomic dysregulation affecting blood flow to the eyes and brain. These symptoms are often attributed to other causes and rarely connected back to the nervous system without the right evaluation.

Why Functional Neurology Approaches Dysautonomia Differently

Standard care for Dysautonomia typically involves managing symptoms, using medications to control heart rate, recommendations to increase salt and fluid intake, compression garments. These approaches have their place, but they don’t address what’s driving the dysfunction in the first place.

At Nexus Neuro, Dr. Matt Schulke looks at the underlying neurological patterns behind your symptoms. That means evaluating how your brain and autonomic nervous system are communicating, identifying where the regulatory breakdowns are happening, and building a plan to retrain those pathways, not just quiet the downstream effects.

Using advanced diagnostic tools including ANS testing, VNG/VOG eye tracking, and NeuroAI, Dr. Matt can map your autonomic function with a level of precision that standard workups don’t provide. That information drives a care plan built around your specific presentation, not a generic Dysautonomia protocol.

Dysautonomia Doesn’t Have to Be Your New Normal

Whatever form your autonomic dysfunction takes, the answer isn’t to manage around it for the rest of your life. Nervous systems can adapt, retrain, and improve. With the right evaluation, the right therapies, and a provider who’s looking at the full picture.

If you’ve been told to “drink more electrolytes and come back in six months,” there’s more to explore. Call 317-884-8824 or visit nexusneurohealth.com to schedule a consultation.