Wide Awake

[Shandance]

I was awaken in the middle of the night by my heart beating very hard. It was not fast. It was hard. It felt as though there was a fist trying to punch through my chest from the inside out. It di that for maybe about seven beats then subsided. I fell back to sleep. I awoke this morning fine but feeling as though I got no sleep. Getting ready toliteraly walk out the door I felt lightheaded, and a headache began with an extremely fatigued feeling ver my whole body. As long as I leaned backagainst the seat in my car and stayed calm and did not move around I was fine. When I had to move ovr to the driver's seat after dropping off my husband I began to feel nauseas and light headed again with the fatigued feeling. It is well into the afternoon and I feel the same. It just feels like every muscle even my heart and everything else on my body is extremely fatigued. A little background of the past couple of weeks: getting over respiratory virus(barely any symptoms, but have not experienced this before during this time), on menstral cycle, new schedule with husbands new job, and christmas play practice at church on weekends. Day starts at 5:00 am does not end until I go to bed at 9:00 pm.

[BlueEgg]

From your name I would guess that you are a woman. A year ago, an acquaintance went to emergency with the same symptoms you have. Her heart was pounding hard and she was very weak and was having some trouble with her breathing so she was getting panicky (which is what we do when we cannot get enough air).  The doctor said that she was having a panic attack and sent her home...where she died of a massive heart attack a few hours later.  This is just a little story to tell you that women do not always have typical symptoms of a heart attack.  Better safe than sorry.  You should GO DIRECTLY to emergency where they will do a blood test to see if you have had a heart attack. You will be admitted immediately. There is never any waiting for cardiac patients.  Do not ignore such symptoms. Men are taken more seriously when they present with heart attack symptoms. Did you know that a recent study revealed that women are released sooner from Intensive Care than men and more women die in Intensive Care than men. Interesting...

[Michael J. McWilliams, M.D.]

It sounds like stress.  The heart pounding sensation related to stress is often related to increase adrenaline, caffeine, stress, lack of sleep etc.  It might be worth a holter monitor to make sure there is not a rhythm issue, but it sounds more like stress related palpitations.

I hope this helps.