‘Fainting in public is incredibly embarrassing’ (Picture: Supplied)
‘It’s a constant battle every day, I wake up and my mind is one way and I’m ready to start the day, but my body has other ideas,’ says 32-year-old Francesca Francis, who lives with PoTS – a condition that causes her to fall unconscious at any given time.
‘It’s as if my mind and body have had a falling out and each of them is as petty as the other, and they’re not ready to communicate.’
Francesca, who grew up in Croydon, first passed out unexpectedly at the age of 16, but she says doctors at the time dismissed it as simply ‘teenage hormones’.
However, things took even more of a turn when Francesca headed to university in Essex to train as a primary school teacher, where she’d find herself frequently fainting during her teaching placement.
Even small movements, like rolling over in bed, caused Francesca to faint unexpectedly.
She tells Metro: ‘Sometimes I couldn’t leave my bed and I was getting serious injuries – I broke my cheekbone and nose, plus I dislocated my shoulder a couple times.’
When she went to the doctors again, she was referred for counselling – with anxiety cited as the cause. But Francesca was sure something else was at play.
Francesca adds: ‘They thought it was all in my head and when you’re told that repeatedly, you start to believe it. So I stopped going to the doctors for a really long time.’
Things got so bad that Francesca’s university told her the condition was impacting her degree.
‘My uni told me I didn’t stand a chance of passing the course because I wasn’t at placement,’ she explains, ‘as even if I was there for the hours, the teachers couldn’t sign off because I was unconscious for most of it – so I wasn’t doing the required work.’
Francesca was forced to drop out of university and was looked after my her housemate at the time. But as the condition was impacting Francesca’s life – leaving her housebound – her mental health took a turn, as a result.
She says: ‘I got really dark, to be honest, as I was feeling so bad. It was starting to affect my housemate’s life who was looking after me and I didn’t want to ruin her life because I didn’t know what was going on.’
In fact, it was Francesca’s housemate who suggested she might have PoTS – a condition when your heart rate increases very quickly after getting up from sitting or lying down that can cause fainting spells or dizziness – and found a specialist for her to see.
After some rigorous tests – and after seven years of searching for an answer – at the age of 23, Francesca was diagnosed with the condition.
Francesca finally got a diagnosis seven years later (Picture: Supplied)
But the diagnosis wasn’t the quick-fix answer that Francesca was hoping for.
She recalls: ‘When I got diagnosed, I was told it’s “guinea pigs drugs” at this point, and whatever they gave me would be trial and error. There was no guarantee that it will help or make things worse. I wasn’t in a great place as it was anyway and I thought after I got the diagnosis it could be fixed – but, obviously, that wasn’t an option.’
The main advice was to make significant lifestyle changes to help reduce the symptoms, like fainting. This involved having three times the daily salt intake, drinking lots of water, and remaining as horizontal as possible.
‘So even after the diagnosis, it was still a hard slog,’ she says.
However, despite getting a diagnosis and now being on numerous medications, the 32-year-old still faints unexpectedly and it has a huge impact on her quality of life.
Some days she’ll faint once or twice, but others it’ll be every hour.
She says: ‘In the summer, I’m fainting regularly throughout the day. Yesterday, for example, I probably only fainted about six times. But the day before that it was constant every hour, just repeated over and over.’
Francesca, who now lives in Battle, East Sussex, also has carers to help her day-to-day.
Caz helps alert her when she’s going to pass out (Picture: Supplied)
One thing that has been life-changing for Francesca is getting her medical assistance dog, Caz.
Since the dog’s arrival, Francesca hasn’t needed to go to A&E for her condition, as Caz warns her when she’s about to fall unconscious.
Caz starts an alert by fidgeting or jumping up – depending on how quickly Francesca will lose consciousness.
She explains: ‘Caz is able to let me know that I’m gonna lose consciousness, or I’m about to have an episode, and she gives me about a three to five minute window. That obviously means I can lay down and avoid injury.
‘But unfortunately, I then can’t stand up immediately after I faint. My legs and arms sort of go like jelly, so it’s more dangerous for me to stand up at that point. Everything’s a bit weak, so if I tried to stand up and then fall again, I then risk popping my hip or a knee.
‘This means I end up lying on the floor for really long periods of time and it becomes a bit demeaning – especially when it’s in public.
‘I can’t really trust my limbs anymore.’
Francesca says she often has people crowding around and asking what she’s doing when she’s forced to lie on the floor in a public place, following a fainting episode.
She continues: ‘People have even tried to steal Caz away from me when I’ve fainted before. I’ve basically stopped going outside now.’
‘She’s able to let me know that I’m gonna lose consciousness’ (Picture: Supplied)
But Francesca has also developed other health conditions as a result of this. She now has lymphoedema in her legs, which means they are incredibly painful to touch, as well as issues with her feet, which feels like she’s ‘walking on glass.’
She continues: ‘I really want to be outside and I really want to try and live the best life I can now that I’ve got Caz, but I can’t because of my pain levels.
‘Also, fainting in public is incredibly embarrassing, but it’s also worse when I have to lay on the floor wherever I am – and that could be like things like a public toilet.
‘The other day it happened to be in the woods and it meant me sitting in a puddle for 40 minutes, because I couldn’t move.’
Francesca is now fundraising on GoFundMe for a special £10,000 reclining electric wheelchair that she says will transform her quality of life.
She says: ‘Having this chair will just give me a bit more dignity – I wouldn’t have to try and get on the floor. It would be great to be able to sort of sit back, lose consciousness, and know I can still leave afterwards. It means I won’t have to stay sat in a dirty place.’
It’s also very different to standard wheelchair, due to the enhanced suspension and reclining features, and isn’t available on the NHS.
Francesca after a fainting episode (Picture: Supplied)
Francesca stresses the specialist chair would be the gateway to the possibility of getting some kind of ‘normal’ life back.
‘If I have the chair, then obviously the next step would be a wheelchair accessible vehicle. This would mean that I can still travel the UK and see different places that are within driving distance,’ she adds.
Francesca also hopes her story will help raise awareness of PoTS.
The 32-year-old adds: ‘I really worry there are others out there somewhere basically house-bound, like I was for years, not knowing how to get out of it.’
She also stresses charities like Medical Detection Dogs have been pivotal in helping her get her life back and hopes others know how life-changing a medical assistance dog can be.
Francesca‘s GoFundMe page can be found here.
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‘I can’t trust my limbs anymore.’