Sleeping disorder

[Sajad_ar]

I am 29 year old male, software engineer by profession, generally in excellent health conditions. Few months back I joined gym and continued for around 3 months, then suddenly I need to travel to my native. I got some strong heart palpitations in the airplane after take off, i got checked by the doctor. ECG was normal. Since then i continuously get heart palpitations during sleep sometimes in strings of 3 to 6 in a row. They would occur as I drift off to sleep, and also wake me up during sleep. While sleeping it feels like some one is tieing up my legs and arms and i am struggling to set myself free, this is followed by sudden jolt and I wake up, feel short of breath.Sometimes it gets worst that i open the door and get out in the open air. Due to this problem i am not able to sleep properly. sometimes i would have completely sleepless nights. I am a smoker and used to have 4-6 cigarettes a day, i found that this problems gets exaggerated with smoking , so i reduced to 2 cigarettes a day and avoid having cigarette after 7 pm. Also, these palpitations get worst when I travel airplane especially during take off and landing. I haven't consulted any doctor yet. Can anyone help in rectifying this problem? Is there any medicine which can help?


This discussion is related to Heart Palpitations While Sleeping.

[matt_s]

could be anxiety, I fly a lot and used to occasionally get a claustrophobic feeling which triggers the anxiety and then the palpitations.  anti-anxiety meds stopped that and it has not been a problem for a while.

[Jerry_NJ]

Good luck, sounds like you are on the path to better heart health.

[Sajad_ar]

Thanks Jerry,

No,I have been flying since childhood, but this problem started just 3 months back and i am not worrying about crashing also. Yes anxiety could be the cause, i was going through some tough situation in life and I was completely awake in the night, the day before I flew to my native. I consulted one physian yesterday, he suggested me to stop smoking and excess tea/coffee.He prescribed ambulax (In India this is the trade name, not sure about other countries, its prepration is diazipam+propanlol). So i started using this medicine. Lets see if it could help.

[Jerry_NJ]

Are you uncomfortable with flying, I mean worry about crashing?  You problem could be anxiety driven.  That's my first guess, and yes there are prescription medications for anxiety, I don't know specifics as I do not have that problem myself.  Good thing I have well over 1 million miles of flying time in just on my main airline.

Are you on any medications?  Some can cause dream problems, and that could stimulate some of the symptoms you describe.  Or, again, anxiety could be the driver even when sleeping, or trying to sleep.