Dysautonomia, Benefits of using Vitassium

Getting diagnosed with a chronic illness can be scary, frustrating, and confusing. Living with chronic illness can be a daily battle not just with your disease, but also with healthcare providers, coworkers, and even family members who struggle to understand the challenges you may face. 

DAILY MANAGEMENT | Specifically formulated to support people living with chronic illness, Vitassium from Saltstick provides sodium and potassium to help manage symptoms of certain types of dysautonomia, including Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Vasovagal Syncope, and Orthostatic Hypotension (OH), as well as other chronic conditions. Often, boosting electrolytes can ease common symptoms of these conditions, such as lightheadedness and fatigue, by increasing blood volume.

SaltStick Vitassium has been formulated to provide salts to help maintain electrolyte levels, support healthy blood pressure, reduce fatigue, support cognitive function, and reduce dizziness due to low blood pressure.

These symptoms affect many people with underlying conditions, such as:

• Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)
• Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS)
• Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
• Vasovagal Syncope

Vitassium can be helpful in increasing sodium plasma levels, which has been shown to help with the symptoms of the above conditions.

What is Dysautonomia?

Dysautonomia is a chronic medical condition that inhibits the autonomic nervous system from properly regulating changes in position, temperature, blood pressure or other responses to the environment. As a result, dysautonomia patients usually suffer from low blood pressure, light-headedness, chronic fatigue and fainting.

Over 70 million people worldwide live with various forms of Dysautonomia.

People living with various forms of dysautonomia have trouble regulating these systems, which can result in light-headedness, fainting, unstable blood pressure, abnormal heart rates, malnutrition and in severe cases, death. To help manage these symptoms, many patients have been advised to increase both fluid and salt intake in order to increase blood volume.

In these instances, Vitassium can help manage the intake of sodium and potassium.

What types of conditions can Vitassium treat?

As mentioned above, Dysautonomia is an umbrella term used to describe several different medical conditions that cause a malfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System.

Below we explain what those conditions are:

POSTURAL ORTHOSTATIC TACHYCARDIA SYNDROME (POTS)

POTS is estimated to impact 1 out of 100 teenagers and, including adult patients, a total of 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 Americans. The condition can cause light headedness, fainting, tachycardia, chest pains, shortness of breath, GI upset, shaking, exercise intolerance, temperature sensitivity and more. While POTS predominantly impacts young women, who look healthy on the outside, researchers compare the disability seen in POTS to the disability seen in conditions like COPD and congestive heart failure.

NEUROCARDIOGENIC SYNCOPE (NCS) / VASOVAGAL SYNCOPE

NCS, also known as vasovagal syncope, is the most common form of dysautonomia, impacting tens of millions of individuals worldwide. Many individuals with NCS have a mild case, with fainting spells once or twice in their lifetime. However, some individuals have severe NCS which results in fainting several times per day, which can lead to falls, broken bones and sometimes traumatic brain injury. Individuals with moderate to severe NCS have difficulty engaging in work, school and social activities due to the frequent fainting attacks.

EHLERS DANLOS SYNDROME

The Ehlers-Danlos syndromes are a group of connective tissue disorders that can be inherited and are varied both in how affect the body and in their genetic causes. They are generally characterized by joint hypermobility (joints that stretch further than normal), skin hyperextensibility (skin that can be stretched further than normal), and tissue fragility. 

Other conditions, that don’t come under dysautonomia include:

CYSTIC FIBROSIS

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited condition that causes sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive system. This causes lung infections and problems with digesting food. In the UK, most cases of cystic fibrosis are picked up at birth using the newborn screening heel prick test. Symptoms usually start in early childhood and vary from child to child, but the condition gets slowly worse over time, with the lungs and digestive system becoming increasingly damaged.

How can Vitassium help?

SaltStick Vitassium can help with several symptoms associated with POTS and other dysautonomia conditions. It has been formulated to provide salts to help maintain electrolyte levels, support healthy blood pressure, reduce fatigue, support cognitive function, and reduce dizziness due to low blood pressure.

If you’ve been diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which is under dysautonomia term. Your doctor has probably advised you to dramatically increase your fluid and salt intake.

There are several reasons for this due to each POTS patient being slightly different. Individual salt intake needs can vary widely, with some physicians recommending 3,000 mg of sodium, and others recommending up to 10,000 mg.

Vitassium Usage

Vitassium is intended for use under medical supervision. If you are an individual whose physician has recommended additional intake of salt (sodium), Vitassium may be helpful to increase your electrolyte intake in a simple capsule format. With easily quantified dosing of 250mg sodium (635mg salt, 11 mmol) per capsule, it makes it easy to take just the right amount for the desired intake. Vitassium also contains potassium in a 5:1 ratio that provides a balanced intake of both major blood electrolytes. Potassium citrate also acts as a buffering agent to minimize pH changes in the blood and can help soothe the stomach.

Vitassium comes in smaller, size “0” vegetarian capsules that are easy to eat and easy on the stomach, especially as compared with salt (sodium chloride) tablets. Capsules should be consumed with water. 

What Vitassium doesn’t have also matters. Vitassium is made from non-GMO ingredients, and is vegan, gluten free, preservative free, allergen free, and starch free. 

It is often recommended to increase both fluid and salt intake in order to increase blood volume, which is typically low in POTS patients. This has been shown to be particularly helpful in patients with blood pooling, hypovolemia, or hypotension. Except for the hyperadrenergic subtype of POTS, a fluid intake of approximately two litres and an intake of three to five grams of salt is often recommended per day.

Every individual will have a different “ideal” usage and dosage. We strongly encourage you to consult with your physician on what may work best for you. To assist with making the association between salt intake and Vitassium intake easier, SaltStick have prepared the following table:For example, if your doctor suggests taking 4g (4000mg) salt per day, that will equal 6-7 Vitassium capsules. To reduce the chance of stomach irritation, we suggest spreading out the dosage in 3-4 smaller doses throughout the day. For example, 2 capsules per serving, taken 4x per day would provide 5g of salt, or 2000mg sodium.

If you are using other products containing sodium, be sure to compare sodium values or sodium chloride values against each other and remember that the two values are not equal. It is also worth noting that 1 Vitassium capsule (250mg Na) equals 11mmol sodium, which is another unit of measure sometimes seen on products containing sodium.

Key Points

• Vitassium is a medical food specifically formulated to provide sodium and potassium for the clinical dietary management for patients with autonomic dysfunction including Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), Addison's Disease, Cystic Fibrosis (CF), and Vasovagal Syncope, when increased plasma volume has been shown to be beneficial.

• Vitassium helps to maintain electrolyte levels, to support healthy blood pressure, and to reduce fatigue and dizziness due to low blood pressure.

• Contains potassium to assist in regulating the balance of water between plasma (blood) and within the cell. In general, excess potassium would be excreted in the urine.

• Each serving (2 capsules) contains: 500mg sodium (22mmol sodium, 1270mg sodium chloride), 100mg potassium.

• Tasteless capsules are small (size 0) and easy on the stomach.

• Vitassium is non-GMO, vegan, gluten free, preservative free, allergen free, starch free.

• Ingredients: Sodium chloride, potassium citrate, vegetarian stearic acid, vegetable capsule.

• Suggested use: As a medical food, take one to two (1-2) capsules with water, three to four (3-4) times a day, for up to ten (10) capsules daily.